EAKLY   HISTOEY   OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 


LECTURES 


DELIVERED    IN    A     COURSE     BEFORE    THE     LOWELL 
INSTITUTE,   IN    BOSTON, 


BY   MEMBERS   OF   THE 


l^fetorfcal 


ON  SUBJECTS  RELATING  TO  THE 


EAELY   HISTOEY  OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 


BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED     BY     THE     SOCIETY. 

1869. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869,  by 

THE   MASSACHUSETTS   HISTORICAL,   SOCIETY, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE  : 

rilKSS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 


THE  Committee  charged  with  the  publication  of  this 
volume  of  Lectures,  must  not  allow  it  to  go  before  the 
public  without  a  grateful  acknowledgment  of  the  in 
debtedness  of  the  Society  to  their  associate,  the  Hon. 
JOHN  AMORY  LOWELL,  for  his  liberal  and  obliging  co 
operation  in  the  arrangements  for  their  delivery  and 
for  their  publication. 

It  should  be  distinctly  understood,  in  view  of  any  con 
flicting  opinions  which  may  perhaps  be  found  in  these 
Lectures,  that  the  author  of  each  Lecture  is  individually 
and  exclusively  responsible  for  whatever  he  has  ad 
vanced. 


184994 


CONTENTS. 


I. 

PAGE 
MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY:   INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

By  Hon.  ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP.     Jan.  5,  1869 1 

II. 

THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OP  THE  FOUNDERS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS 

COLONY.     By  GEORGE  E.  ELLIS,  D.D.     Jan.  8,  1869  .....      29 

III. 

TREATMENT  OF  INTRUDERS  AND  DISSENTIENTS  BY  THE  FOUNDERS  OF 

MASSACHUSETTS.    By  GEORGE  E.  ELLIS,  D.D.    Jan.  12,  1869    .     .       75 

IV. 

HISTORY  OF  GRANTS  UNDER  THE  GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND. 

By  SAMUEL  F.  HAVEN,  A.M.     Jan.  15,  1869 127 

V. 

THE  COLONY  OF   NEW  PLYMOUTH  AND  ITS   RELATIONS  TO  MASSA 
CHUSETTS.     By  WILLIAM  BRIGHAM,  A.M.    Jan.  19,  1869.     ...     163 

VI. 

SLAVERY  AS  IT    ONCE    PREVAILED   IN  MASSACHUSETTS.      By   EMORY 

WASHBURN,  LL.D.    Jan.  22,  1869 191 

VII. 

RECORDS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  UNDER  ITS  FIRST  CHARTER.     By  Hon. 

CHARLES  W.  UPHAM.    Jan.  26,  1869 227 

VIII. 

THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.     By  OLIVER  WENDELL 

HOLMES,  M.D.     Jan.  29,  1869  257 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

IX. 

PAGE 
EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS.     By  SAMUEL  ELIOT,  LL.D. 

Feb.  2/1869 * 303 

X. 

THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.     By  CHANDLER  ROB- 
BINS,  D.D.     Feb.  5,  1869    .     .     .     .     ; 319 

XL 

THE  FIRST   CHARTER  AND  THE    EARLY  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF 

MASSACHUSETTS.     By  JOEL  PARKER,  LL.D.     Feb.  9,  18G9    ...     355 

XII. 

PURITAN  POLITICS  OF  ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND.     By  EDWARD 

E.  HALE,  A.M.     Feb.  12,  1869 441 

XIII. 

EDUCATION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS:   EARLY  LEGISLATION  AND  HISTORY. 

By  GEORGE  B.  EMERSON,  LL.D.     Feb.  16,  1869 463 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND    ITS   EARLY  HISTORY. 


Jntroiructorg    ILecture 

BY 

HON.     ROBERT     C.     WINTHROP. 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTOEY. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


A  N  Introductory  Lecture,  my  friends,  like  an  overture  to  an 
-^~^-  oratorio  or  an  opera,  has,  proverbially,  a  wide  scope ;  and  I 
shall  avail  myself,  with  your  indulgence,  of  the  largest  privileges 
of  my  position.  It  is  no  affectation  in  me,  however,  to  say  to 
you  at  the  outset,  that  I  have  little  hope  of  satisfying  even  the 
reasonable  requisitions  of  the  service  which  has  been  assigned 
me.  I  am  conscious,  indeed,  of  coming  here  this  evening  to 
offer  an  apology,  rather  than  to  deliver  an  historical  lecture. 
Most  gladly  would  I  have  prepared  myself  to  do  something 
worthy  of  such  an  occasion,  and  of  such  an  audience  as  I  see 
before  me.  Most  gladly  would  I  have  prepared  myself,  had  it 
been  in  my  power,  to  deliver  something  suitable  to  the  position 
which  I  am  called  to  occupy  here,  as  the  President  of  the  old 
Historical  Society  of  Massachusetts,  the  oldest  historical  society 
in  our  country ;  which,  for  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  cen 
tury,  has  devoted  itself  to  the  illustration  of  the  Colonial  history 
of  New  England,  publishing  more  than  forty  volumes  of  invalu 
able  historical  materials,  which  ought  to  be  in  the  library  of  every 
town  and  village  of  New  England,  but  which,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
have  had  fewer  patrons,  or  certainly  fewer  purchasers,  than  they 
deserved  and  needed. 

Most  gladly,  too,  would  I  have  prepared  myself,  had  it  proved 
to  be  possible,  to  say  something  appropriate  and  proportionate  to 
the  great  theme  of  that  series  of  lectures  which  I  am  privileged 
to  introduce,  —  the  historical  merits  and  virtues  of  the  founders 
and  builders-up  of  this  old  Puritan  Commonwealth,  —  not  second, 


4  MASSACHUSETTS    AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY. 

certainly,  to  any  Commonwealth  beneath  the  sun,  for  the  influ 
ence  it  has  exerted  upon  the  welfare  of  the  world,  and  the  ex 
amples  it  has  afforded  for  the  admiration  and  imitation  of  mankind. 
Such  a  theme,  I  am  sensible,  deserves  and  demands  the  best 
treatment  of  which  any  of  us  are  capable.  The  praises  of  the 
New-England  Fathers  should  not  be  feebly  uttered.  To  preface 
a  course  of  lectures  on  such  a  subject,  and  by  such  lecturers 
as  are  to  succeed  me,  by  any  vapid  commonplaces,  or  any  mere 
vaporing  and  boastful  panegyrics,  were  like  putting  up  a  lath- 
and-plaster  portico  to  some  stately  Doric  temple,  or  a  fagade  of 
stucco  upon  some  solid  mausoleum  of  marble  or  porphyry. 
Better  let  the  structure  be,  without  any  fagade  at  all,  —  as  the 
grand  Cathedral  of  Florence,  with  that  majestic  dome  which  so 
roused  the  emulation  of  Michel  Angelo,  has  stood  for  so  many 
centuries,  —  than  impair  its  grandeur,  and  offend  its  majesty,  by 
any  cheap  or  incongruous  frontispiece.  There  was  nothing  of 
sham  in  the  character  or  the  conduct  of  those  with  whom  our 
lectures  are  to  deal ;  and  nothing  of  sham  should  be  associated 
with  their  commemoration. 

Why,  then,  am  I  here  at  all,  —  seeing  that  I  must  needs  be  so 
reckless  of  my  own  rede,  and  do  only  what  I  feel  to  be  so  far 
short  of  my  own  conception,  at  least,  of  what  is  due  to  the  occa 
sion  ?  The  answer  to  this  question,  my  friends,  will  supply  me 
with  a  subject,  and  will  furnish  the  substance  of  the  apology 
which  I  am  here  to  offer  you. 

Allow  me,  at  the  outset,  to  recall  the  circumstances  under 
which  I  first  heard  of  these  lectures.  It  was  about  the  end  of 
last  January,  just  as  I  was  leaving  the  pleasant  city  of  Nice,  re 
cently  included  in  the  Empire  of  France,  that  I  received  a  kind 
letter  from  my  valued  friend,  Dr.  George  E.  Ellis,  —  the  original 
proposer  of  these  lectures,  and  without  whom  they  would  not 
and  could  not  have  been  undertaken,  and  who  is  himself  to  ad 
dress  you  next  Friday  evening  on  the  "  Aims  and  Purposes  of 
the  Founders  of  the  Massachusetts  Colony,"  —  a  letter  announ 
cing  that  such  a  course  wras  in  process  of  arrangement  between 
Mr.  Lowell  and  himself,  and  suggesting  the  hope  that  I  might 
return  home  in  season  for  its  opening  or  its  close.  I  had  just 
taken  leave  of  our  grand  Admiral  Farragut,  who,  throughout  that 
eventful  circumnavigation  from  which  he  has  recently  returned, 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY.  5 

made  friends  for  his  country,  as  well  as  for  himself,  wherever  he 
went ;  and  the  carriage  was  already  at  the  door,  which  was  to 
bear  me  along  that  magnificent  Corniche  road,  —  on  the  very 
brink  of  the  Mediterranean,  —  of  which  any  one  who  has  ever 
been  over  it  will  require  no  description,  while  to  those  who  are 
still  strangers  to  its  marvellous  attractions  and  its  magic  beauty, 
i\o  words  of  others,  certainly  not  of  mine,  could  convey  any 
adequate  conceptions  of  them.  I  drove  along  this  incomparable 
road  during  three  days  of  delicious  weather,  and  on  the  fourth 
day  entered  that  superb  city  which  a  grander  Admiral  even  than 
Farragut  might  well  have  been  proud  to  claim  as  his  birthplace, 

—  Christopher  Columbus,  a  native  of  Genoa.     A  noble  monu 
ment  to   Columbus,  recently  finished,  surmounted  by  a  striking 
statue  of  him,  and  adorned  by  a  series  of  bas-reliefs  illustrating 
the  strange,  eventful  story  of  his  life,  —  from  which,  I  need  hardly 
say,  the  Discovery  of  America  was  not  wholly  omitted,  —  greeted 
us   at  the   gates,  with   the   simple  inscription  in   Italian,  "  To 
Christopher  Columbus  from  his  Country ; "  and,  as  I  gazed  upon 
it  with  admiration,  I  could  not  help  feeling  that  it  was  not  there 
alone  that  a  monument  and  a  statue  were  due  to  his  memory, 
but  that  upon  the  shores  of  our  own  hemisphere,  too,  there  ought 
to   be    some  worthy  memorial  of  the   discoverer  of   the   New 
World.     I  could  not  help  feeling,  indeed,  how  fit  it  would  be,  if 
we  could  have  at  New  York,1  or  in  Boston,  or  at  Washington,  or 
at  Worcester,  —  under  the  auspices  of  our  excellent  American 
Antiquarian   Society,  which   has  taken   the   supposed   date   of 
Columbus's  discovery  as  the  date  of  its  own  anniversary,  —  an 
exact  reproduction  of  this  admirable  monument  at  Genoa,  so 
that  hemisphere  should  seem  to  respond  to  hemisphere  in  a  com 
mon  tribute  to  the  heroic  and  matchless  old  navigator.    It  would 
be  some  sort  of  atonement,  I  thought,  on  the  part  of  America, 

—  tardy  and  inadequate,  indeed,  but  better  than  nothing,  —  for 
having  allowed  the  name  of  another,  however  meritorious,  to 
usurp  the  place  to  which  his  name  was  so  pre-eminently  entitled 
in  the  geographical  nomenclature  of  the  globe. 

No  one,  however,  who  observes  the  course  of  things  in  our 
own  land,  if  not  in  other  lands,  in  regard  to  monuments  and 
statues,  can  be  surprised  that  the  claims  of  Columbus  should 
have  been  postponed.  Shakspeare  has  portrayed  the  whole 

i  See  p.  27. 


6  MASSACHUSETTS   AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY. 

philosophy  of  the  matter,  in  that  most  impressive  passage  which 
he  has  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  not  altogether  reticent  Ulysses 
of  ancient  Greece.  You  all  remember  it :  — 

"  Time  hath,  my  lord,  a  wallet  at  his  back, 
"Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  oblivion, 
A  great-sized  monster  of  ingratitudes  : 

Those  scraps  are  good  deeds  past ;  which  are  devour'd  i 

As  fast  as  they  are  made,  forgot  as  soon 
As  done :..... 
One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin,  — 
That  all,  with  one  consent,  praise  new-born  gawds, 
Though  they  are  made  and  moulded  of  things  past ; 
And  give  to  dust,  that  is  a  little  gilt, 
More  laud  than  gilt  o'er-dusted. 
The  present  eye  praises  the  present  object." 

How  true  is  it,  my  friends,  here  and  elsewhere,  now  as  in 
Shakspeare's  time,  that  the  man  who  discovered  a  continent,  or 
founded  a  great  commonwealth,  is  postponed  to  some  living  hero, 
or  to  him  who  died  but  yesterday !  For  a  time  the  heroes  of  our 
Revolution  crowded  out  all  commemoration  of  the  Pilgrim  or 

O 

Puritan  Fathers.  Then  came  the  heroes  of  a  later  war  with 
England  to  crowd  out  the  Revolutionary  patriots.  Next  fol 
lowed  the  heroes  of  the  conquest  of  Mexico.  More  recently, 
the  heroes  and  martyrs  of  our  late  civil  war  have  absorbed 
all  our  sympathies  and  all  our  means.  It  is  not  unnatural; 
nor  is  it  a  subject  for  reproach  or  complaint,  or  for  any  thing 
but  satisfaction.  We  grudge  no  tribute,  certainly,  however 
costly,  to  those  heroic  young  lives  which  were  offered  up  so 
nobly  for  the  recent  rescue  of  the  National  Union.  Yet  it 
may  be  hoped  that  a  day  will  still  come,  when  America  may  have 
time  to  look  back,  even  as  far  as  Columbus ;  and,  coming  down 
through  the  various  stages  of  her  early  colonial  settlement,  and 
her  later  constitutional  government,  may  provide  some  fit  me 
morials  of  the  men  to  whom  she  has  owed  her  rise  and  progress. 
It  may  be  hoped  that  a  day  will  come,  when  Massachusetts  may 
have  leisure  to  examine  that  "  wallet  of  oblivion  at  the  back  of 
Time,"  and  to  rescue  from  it  some  names  and  deeds  of  her  own 
earlier  and  later  history,  which  she  would  not  willingly  let  die. 
It  may  be  hoped  that  a  day  will  come,  when  our  own  city  may 
have  time  to  review  her  roll  of  honor,  and  may  realize  that  no 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY.  7 

Campo  Santo,  or  Santa  Croce,  or  Pere  la  Chaise,  or  Westminster 
Abbey  of  the  Old  World,  contains  dust  more  precious,  or  more 
worthy  of  commemoration,  than  that  which  lies  almost  un- 
jnarked  in  some  of  her  own  ancient  graveyards.  I  will  men 
tion  but  a  single  name ;  that  of  the  great  minister  of  our  first 
Puritan  church,  in  honor  of  whose  intended  coming  our  city  is 
said  to  have  been  called :  —  We  sent,  indeed,  over  the  Atlantic, 
not  many  years  since,  a  considerable  sum  of  money  to  repair  the 
little  chapel  of  his  noble  church  in  Boston,  Lincolnshire,  Old 
England ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  tell  the  passer-by,  unless  he 
stoops  over  the  mouldering  stone  with  the  microscope  of  an  Old 
Mortality,  where,  in  the  Boston  of  New  England,  have  reposed 
for  two  centuries  the  ashes  of  JOHN  COTTON. 

But  the  statue  of  Columbus  was  not  the  only  thing  I  saw  in 
Genoa,  which  awakened  reflections  and  associations  connected 
with  my  own  land.  I  did  not  fail  to  grope  my  way  through  the 
old  Historic  Hall,  with  its  double  row  of  original  portrait  statues 
of  the  old  Genoese  nobles,  formerly  known  as  the  Bank  of  St. 
George,  but  now  desecrated  to  the  use  of  the  dingiest  depart 
ment  of  what,  I  should  hope  and  believe,  is  the  dingiest  custom 
house  in  the  world.  Heaven  forbid,  thought  I,  that  any  historic 
hall  of  my  own  land  should  ever  suffer  such  a  profanation. 
Yet  when  I  remembered  how  inadequately  cared  for  our  own 
Faneuil  Hall,  and  still  more  our  own  old  State  House,  had  often 
been ;  and  how  much  of  their  sanctity  and  of  their  safety  had 
been  sacrificed  in  years  past,  if  they  were  not  still,  to  any  and 
every  purpose  which  might  increase  the  rents,  and  add  a  few 
more  hundreds  of  dollars  to  a  treasury  from  which  so  much  goes 
out  from  year  to  year  for  more  than  doubtful  expenditures,  —  I 
was  less  emboldened  to  indulge  in  any  wholesale  strictures  upon 
other  cities.  But  better,  a  thousand-fold  better,  let  me  say  in 
passing,  that  all  such  structures,  whether  in  Genoa  or  in  Boston, 
should  be  razed  to  the  ground  at  once,  and  live  only  as  they  are 
photographed  on  the  hearts  of  those  who  have  held  them  sacred, 
than  that  they  should  be  left  cumbering  the  ground  and  blocking 
the  highway,  only  to  signalize  the  more  conspicuously  that 
indifference  and  irreverence  towards  the  noblest  scenes  and 
associations  of  a  glorious  past,  which  have  been  engendered  by 
the  rush  and  crush  of  modern  improvement  and  modern  traffic. 


8  MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY. 

But  pardon  me,  my  friends,  for  such  a  digression,  and  bear 
with  me  kindly  as  I  roll  rapidly  again  along  the  Riviera,  resting 
at  mid-day  on  the  lofty  hill  at  Rota,  which  commands  so  wonder 
ful  a  view,  and  reaching  Sestri  di  Ponente  just  in  season  to 
enjoy  one  of  those  indescribable  Italian  sunsets.  The  necessity 
of  an  early  start,  the  next  day,  not  only  secured  us  an  opportunity 
of  witnessing  what  Jeremy  Taylor  had  so  vividly  in  mind  when 
he  quaintly  recommended  to  the  readers  of  his  "  Holy  Living," 
that  they  should  sometimes  "  be  curious  to  see  the  preparations 
which  the  sun  makes,  when  he  is  about  to  quit  his  chamber  in 
the  East;"  but  enabled  us  also  to  reach  the  summit  of  the  last 
mountain  on  our  route,  in  season  to  look  down  upon  the  lovely 
harbor  of  Spezia,  just  as  the  daystar  was  once  more  sinking 
beneath  the  blue  waters  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  casting  those 
ineffable  roseate  hues  upon  the  snow-capped  Apennines  in  the 
distance,  while  at  the  same  instant  a  full-orbed  moon  was 
rising  majestically  from  behind  them.  A  more  delightful  and 
inspiring  view  it  has  hardly  entered  into  the  imagination  of  poet 
or  painter  to  conceive.  Shall  I  be  forgiven,  however,  for  saying 
that  there  was  an  added  beauty  to  that  view, —  to  American 
eyes,  certainly,  —  when  we  descried  in  the  harbor  below  us, 
safely  riding  at  anchor,  and  surrounded  by  its  companions  of 
the  squadron,  and  surmounted  by  the  stars  and  stripes,  the  same 
noble  propeller,  bearing  the  name  of  the  "  Great  Bostonian,"  — 
Franklin,  —  which  we  had  left  at  Nice,  and  which  had  come  round 
there  that  very  day  ?  I  do  not  envy  the  apathy  of  any  American, 
young  or  old,  who  can  suddenly  find  himself  face  to  face,  in  a 
foreign  land,  with  the  flag  of  his  country,  flying  from  the  mast 
head  of  one  of  its  noblest  frigates,  and  symbolizing  more  espe 
cially  the  personal  presence  and  authority  of  an  admiral  who 
went  into  action  lashed  to  a  mast-head  himself, —  I  do  not  envy, 
I  say,  the  composure  of  one  who  can  confront  that  flag,  under 
such  circumstances,  without  emotion ;  or,  who  would  not  con 
sider  any  prospect,  which  sun  and  moon  and  azure  waves  and 
snow-capt  hills  combined  can  make  up,  as  beautified  and  glorified 
by  such  an  additional  feature. 

The  next  morning,  I  found  myself  in  the  train  with  Farragut 
and  his  party,  and  went  on  with  them  to  Pisa,  where  we  all 
ascended  "  the  tower  which  leans  and  leans  and  leans,  but 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY.  9 

never  falls."  On  the  following  day,  I  was  where  I  could  read 
the  inscription  on  the  ancient  residence  of  Americus  Vespucius; 
and  where  I  was  led  to  wish  again,  as  I  had  more  than  once 
wished  before,  that  Boston  would  follow  the  example  of  Florence, 
and  so  inscribe  its  local  history  on  the  names  of  its  streets,  and 
the  walls  of  its  houses,  that  it  might  be  read  by  every  boy  and 
girl  on  their  way  to  school. 

But  what,  you  may  well  ask,  my  friends,  what  has  all  this  to 
do  with  the  course  of  historical  lectures  which  I  am  here  officially 
to  introduce?  What  has  it  all  to  do  even  with  the  apology 
which  I  proposed  to  offer  you?  Not  so  much,  perhaps,  with 
either  as  might  be  wished,  yet  by  no  means  so  little  as  some 
of  my  hearers  may  at  first  be  disposed  to  think.  For  as  I 
drove  along  that  magnificent  road,  during  those  five  or  six 
days  of  superb  weather,  when  sun  and  moon  and  each  particular 
star  would  seem  to  have  shed  their  selectest  influence  upon 
our  pathway  (and  be  it  always  borne  in  mind,  that  one  may 
as  well  look  for  the  beauties  of  a  landscape  while  passing 
through  a  tunnel,  as  attempt  to  form  any  idea  of  the  grandeur  of 
the  Corniche  by  traversing  it  in  a  fog  or  a  storm),  —  as  I  drove 
along  that  marvellous  road  which,  too  soon,  I  fear,  is  to  be 
abandoned  for  the  greater  despatch  and  economy  of  an  already 
half-finished  railroad,  the  letter  of  my  friend  Dr.  Ellis,  an 
nouncing  these  lectures,  and  which  had  been  opened  as  I  entered 
the  carriage,  was  fresh  in  my  mind  and  frequently  in  my  hand. 
I  read  it  certainly  more  than  once,  or  twice,  or  thrice ;  and  the 
subject  to  which  it  referred  kept  strangely  blending  itself  with 
all  I  was  observing  and  enjoying,  entering  unbidden  alike  into 
my  thoughts  by  day  and  my  dreams  by  night.  As  I  gazed,  at  one 
moment,  on  the  glorious  sea  at  my  side,  and  marked  the  match 
less  blueness  of  its  waters ;  and  at  another,  on  the  gorgeous 
hues  of  sunrise,  or  of  sunset,  around  and  above  me,  fulfilling, 
as  hardly  anywhere  else  is  so  completely  fulfilled,  the  exquisite 
idea  of  the  Psalmist,  —  "  Thou  makest  the  outgoings  of  the  morn 
ing  and  the  evening  to  rejoice;" — as  I  contemplated  the  varied 
luxuriance  of  the  climate  and  the  soil,  where,  on  those  last  days 
of  January  and  first  days  of  February,  the  vine  and  the  olive  were 
still  wearing  their  leafy  honors  side  by  side;  and  oranges  and 
lemons  still  ripening  on  the  branches ;  and  the  rose  and  the  sweet 


10  MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY. 

pea  still  blooming  on  the  walls  and  in  the  gardens;  —  as  I 
inhaled  that  balmy  air  which  made  it  a  luxury  to  breathe;  —  as 
I  turned  to  the  thousand  forms  of  beauty  and  of  grandeur  which 
greeted  me  from  the  distant  hills  and  mountains,  the  Maritime 
Alps  or  Ligurian  Apennines,  with  their  robes  of  ice  and  diadems 
of  snow :  —  all  the  while,  old  Massachusetts  and  its  history  and 
its  Historical  Society,  and  this  very  course  of  Lowell  lectures, 
were  still  uppermost,  or  undermost,  or  somewhere  in  the  midst  of 
my  thoughts,  —  sometimes  in  the  way  of  comparison  and  some 
times  of  contrast,  sometimes  of  yearning  and  sometimes,  I  do 
confess,  of  dread. 

I  could  not  help  feeling,  of  course,  that  whatever  else  my 
native  State  might  have  to  boast  of,  she  had  nothing  in 
the  way  of  sea,  or  sky,  or  soil,  of  climate  or  of  scenery,  to 
be  compared  for  an  instant  with  what  I  was  beholding.  I 
could  not  help  contrasting  the  genial  temperature  and  glowing 
atmosphere  which  I  was  enjoying,  with  the  bleak  winds  and 
deep  snows  and  drenching  storms  and  freezing  cold,  which  my 
fellow-citizens  at  home  must  have  been  at  that  moment  endur 
ing.  And  while  I  was  thus  meditating  and  musing,  the  fire 
kindled,  and  I  found  myself  seriously  asking  myself,  whether  I 
would  permanently  exchange,  were  it  in  my  power  to  do  so,  such 
sea  and  sky  and  soil,  as  we  have  here  in  New  England  to-day, 
for  those  of  southern  France  or  central  Italy ;  and  suddenly  I 
found  myself  resolving,  that  if  I  should  reach  my  home  safely 
and  in  season,  and  should  be  called  on  to  take  either  an  opening 
or  a  closing  part  in  this  course  of  lectures,  —  ignorant,  as  I  was, 
what  other  subjects  might  be  left  open  to  me,  —  I  would  give  my 
reasons  for  saying  no,  —  emphatically  no,  —  to  this  question; 
and  would  devote  my  little  Hour  to  some  thoughts  on  the  influ 
ences  upon  the  character  and  career  of  our  earlier  and  our  later 
people,  and  on  the  supreme  results  to  our  history  as  a  Common 
wealth,  of  that  very  soil  and  climate  about  which  we  are  so  often 
disposed  to  complain,  and  of  which  my  letters  from  home  were 
at  that  moment  saying,  "  that  it  was  feared  the  Gulf  Stream 
had  changed  its  current,  and  that  we  might  soon  look  out  for 
polar  bears  and  other  arctic  curiosities!"  And  soon  the  subject 
and  its  treatment  began  to  expand  and  shape  itself  in  my  mind. 
I  bethought  me  that  Massachusetts,  too,  had  a  sea  of  her  own, 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY.  11 

—  an  historical  sea,  if  I  may  so  speak ;  that,  indeed,  she  had 
risen  out  of  the  sea,  that  she  could  not  have  been  Mas 
sachusetts  had  she  not  been  founded  on  the  coast.  And  I 
followed  that  coast  around,  on  the  map  of  my  memory,  from  the 
farthest  point  of  Cape  Cod,  to  which  Captain  John  Smith,  —  one 
of  the  pioneers  of  New-England  exploration,  of  whom  my  friend 
Hillard  has  given  us  so  good  a  Life ;  and  who  himself  deserves  a 
statue  or  a  monument  somewhere  along  shore,  —  attempted  to 
affix  the  name  of  King  James;  round  to  the  extremest  verge  of 
Cape  Ann,  to  which  the  same  bold,  though  erratic — I  had 
almost  said  vagabond  —  navigator  essayed  to  give  the  portentous 
and  not  altogether  musical  title  of  Cape  Tragabigzanda.  I 
found  myself  pausing  in  this  survey,  as  you  will  not  doubt,  to 
mark  the  spot  in  Provincetown  Harbor,  where,  in  the  cabin  of  the 
"  Mayflower,"  the  first  written  Constitution  known  to  the  history 
of  the  world,  was  drawn  up,  agreed  upon,  and  signed.  I  found 
myself  pausing  again,  as  you  will  not  doubt,  to  mark  the  spot  in 
Plymouth  Harbor,  where  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  left  the  "  May 
flower  "  at  that  terrible  wintry  season,  and  landed  on  that  conse 
crated  rock.  I  found  myself  pausing  once  more,  you  may  be  sure, 
to  mark  the  spot  in  the  gentler  waters  which  wash  that  charming 
Beverly  shore  in  the  harbor  of  Salem,  where  the  "  Arbella,"  with 
the  charter  of  Massachusetts,  and  its  governor  and  company, 
came  to  anchor  ten  years  later.  Nor  did  I  altogether  forget  the 
little  islands  on  which  Bartholomew  Gosnold  had  landed  and 
built  a  house,  before  Puritan  or  Pilgrim,  or  even  John  Smith,  had 
ventured  within  our  bay.  And  then  there  came  over  me  a  more 
vivid  impression  than  ever  before,  of  all  that  that  bay,  with  the 
great  ocean  of  which  it  is  an  inlet,  had  done  for  the  character 
and  enterprise  and  industry  of  our  people,  from  those  early  days 
to  this.  I  bethought  me  of  those  whale-fisheries,  of  which  it  had 
been  the  cradle  and  the  nursery,  and  which  elicited  that  well- 
remembered  and  magnificent  tribute  of  Edmund  Burke,  in  his 
speech  on  conciliation  with  America,  —  a  tribute,  which,  at  the 
end  of  nearly  a  hundred  years,  cannot  be  read  without  stirring 
our  blood  like  a  trumpet,  and  which  is  worthy  of  being  read 
and  re-read,  as  a  piece  of  glorious  prose  which  neither  Macaulay 
nor  Milton  often,  if  ever,  surpassed:  — 


12  MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY. 

"Look  at  the  manner  in  which  the  people  of  New  England,"  said 
Burke,  "  have  of  late  carried  on  the  whale-fishery.  Whilst  we  follow 
them  among  the  tumbling  mountains  of  ice,  and  behold  them  penetrating 
into  the  deepest  frozen  recesses  of  Hudson's  Bay  and  Davis's  Straits, 
whilst  we  are  looking  for  them  beneath  the  arctic  circle,  we  hear  that 
they  have  pierced  into  the  opposite  region  of  polar  cold,  that  they  are  at 
the  antipodes,  and  engaged  under  the  frozen  serpent  of  the  South.  Falk 
land  Island,  which  seemed  too  remote  and  romantic  an  object  for  the  grasp 
of  rational  ambition,  is  but  a  stage  and  resting-place  in  the  progress  of 
their  victorious  industry.  Nor  is  the  equinoctial  heat  more  discouraging 
to  them,  than  the  accumulated  winter  of  both  the  poles.  We  know  that 
whilst  some  of  them  draw  the  line  and  strike  the  harpoon  on  the  coast  of 
Africa,  others  run  the  longitude,  and  pursue  their  gigantic  game  along  the 
coast  of  Brazil.  No  sea  but  what  is  vexed  by  their  fisheries.  No 
climate  that  is  not  witness  to  their  toils.  Neither  the  perseverance  of 
Holland,  nor  the  activity  of  France,  nor  the  dexterous  and  firm  sagacity 
of  English  enterprise,  ever  carried  this  most  perilous  mode  of  hardy 
industry  to  the  extent  to  which  it  has  been  pushed  by  this  recent  people ; 
a  people  who  are  still,  as  it  were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and  not  yet  hard 
ened  into  the  bone  of  manhood." 

I  bethought  me,  too,  of  the  cod  fisheries  which  our  bay  had 
nourished  and  cherished,  until  they  became  at  one  time  so  far 
the  very  staple  of  our  Commonwealth,  that  their  emblem,  —  as  I 
have  the  best  reason  for  remembering,  —  was  suspended,  where  it 
still 'hangs,  over  the  chair  of  the  presiding  officer  of  the  represen 
tatives  of  the  people  in  our  legislative  halls.  I  bethought  me, 
again,  of  the  mercantile  marine  it  had  built  up,  until  Salem 
became  one  of  the  great  seats  of  the  East-India  trade ;  and 
Captain  Robert  Gray,  of  Boston,  discovered  the  Columbia  River; 
and  Boston  itself  rose  to  be  the  third,  —  as  it  not  long  ago  was, 
I  know  not  where  it  stands  now,  —  while  New  Bedford  was  hardly 
less  than  the  fifth,  in  the  commercial  tonnage  of  the  Union.  Nor, 
certainly,  did  I  fail  to  remember  what  our  bay  and  our  sea  had 
done  for  the  national  navy,  and  the  thousands  of  gallant  tars  it 
had  supplied  for  fighting  their  country's  battles  on  the  ocean,  — 
whether  under  Bainbridge  and  Lawrence  and  Chauncey  and  Hull 
and  Decatur,  in  those  days  when  George  Canning  declared,  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  that  "  the  spell  of  British  invincibility  on  the 
ocean  was  at  last  broken ; "  or  in  these  latter  days  of  not  inferior 
glory,  under  Porter  and  Rodgers  and  Winslow  and  Foote  and  Far- 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY.  13 

ragut,  Was  this  a  sea,  I  asked  myself,  to  be  disowned,  or  abandoned, 
or  exchanged  for  any  other  sea  beneath  the  sun  ?  It  was  no  Medi 
terranean,  indeed.  It  did  not  run  between  vine-clad  hills  and 
romantic  villages ;  and  one  could  hardly  sail  an  hour  upon  it,  in 
a  straight  course,  without  leaving  capes  and  headlands  and  snug 
harbors  behind  him,  and  going  out  to  buffet  with  the  big  rollers 
and  swelling  billows  of  the  vast  Atlantic,  with  nothing  but  the 
sea  and  the  sky,  and  the  God  above  the  sky,  to  witness  the  en 
counter.  But,  for  this  very  reason,  it  was  a  sea  to  impart  the 
bravery  it  demanded ;  to  stimulate  the  adventure  it  invited ;  and 
to  breed  and  educate,  as  it  has  bred  and  educated,  a  race  of  hardy 
and  intrepid  mariners,  taking  to  the  water,  —  as  Dr.  Palfrey  once 
so  happily  said,  —  as  naturally  as  so  many  ducks  to  a  pond ;  whose 
enterprise  and  exploits  have  supplied,  and  are  still  destined  to 
supply,  the  theme  of  solid  history,  as  well  as  of  brilliant  romance, 
to  the  end  of  time ;  mariners  of  New  England,  who  are  as  worthy 
of  being  famous  in  song  and  story,  as  those  mariners  of  Old  Eng 
land,  whose  memories  are  embalmed  in  the  immortal  song  of 
Campbell. 

And  then  I  bethought  me  of  the  climate  of  Massachusetts, 
which  had  so  marvellously  co-operated  with  the  sea,  in  giving 
vigor  and  energy  and  hardihood  to  our  people.  True,  we  had 
no  Januarys  or  Februarys  like  those  I  was  experiencing.  True, 
our  winters  were  almost  always  long  and  dreary  and  dreadful, 
and  our  summers  too  often  brief  and  scorching.  A  glorious 
autumn  we  might  generally  boast  of,  kindling  our  forests  into  a 
thousand  glories,  as  the  inexorable  Frost  King  blazes  his  path 
way  through  the  valleys  and  along  the  hill-sides,  in  colors  such  as 
never  adorned  the  train  of  any  other  earthly  monarch :  but  we 
have  had  recent  experience  that  even  this  cannot  be  counted  on; 
while  as  to  spring,  —  why,  if  our  poet  Bryant  had  seen  fit  to  vie 
with  Thomson,  —  as  I  think  he  might  have  done,  —  and  to  depict 
the  Seasons  of  New  England,  he  could  have  done  nothing  but 
include  spring  in  a  parenthesis. 

Yet,  would  I  alter  all  this  ?  Would  I,  if  the  wand  of  Prospero, 
to  lay  or  lift  a  tempest,  were  in  my  hand,  exchange  even  our 
Boston  east  wind,  eager  and  nipping  as  it  is,  for  some  sweet  but 
treacherous  south,  breathing,  indeed,  over  a  bank  of  violets,  but 
bringing  in  its  track  the  lassitude,  the  self-indulgence,  the  aver- 


14  MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS  EARLY   HISTORY. 

sion  to  labor,  the  inaptitude  for  liberty,  the  incapacity  for  self- 
government,  or  for  sustained  and  manly  effort  of  any  sort,  which 
characterize  so  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  those  sunny  climes 
through  which  I  was  then  passing?  Admit  that  our  east  wind 
may  have  imparted  not  a  little  of  its  harsh  and  acrid  quality  to 
the  tempers  of  those  who  first  weathered  it,  which  has  not  been 
wholly  eradicated,  which  perhaps  never  can  be  eradicated,  from 
the  tempers  of  their  descendants;  for  lam  disposed  to  think, 
that  the  acrid  quality  of  the  climate  was,  in  part  at  least,  pri 
marily  responsible  for  creating  that  "  acrid  spirit  of  the  times," 
which  Longfellow  tells  us,  at  the  close  of  one  of  his  graceful 
New-England  tragedies,  "corroded  the  true  steel"  of  one  of  the 
earliest  and  bravest  of  the  old  Puritan  leaders.  But  what  other 
climate  could  have  given  them  the  muscle,  the  grit,  the  gristle  (as 
Burke  called  it),  the  strong  right  arms,  and  the  stern  and  dauntless 
souls,  which  enabled  them  to  endure  the  deprivations  of  a  wil 
derness,  and  to  subdue  a  soil  which  would  have  repelled  and 
defied  all  feebler  hands  or  hearts  ? 

And,  next,  I  bethought  me  of  that  soil :  What  a  soil  it  was,  here 
in  New  England,  what  a  soil  it  is  still,  compared  with  that  then 
beneath  my  feet !  And  I  remembered  but  too  vividly  the  dreary 
and  desolate  look  of  a  Massachusetts  landscape  for  six  or  seven 
months  of  the  year,  not  only  without  fruit  or  flowers,  like  those 
which  were  on  all  sides  around  me,  but  without  a  spire  of  grass 
or  a  leaf  on  the  trees.  But  I  remembered,  too,  a  little  dialogue 
which  I  had  once  heard  from  the  lips  of  Edward  Everett. 
Would  that  those  lips  had  language  still,  and  could  repeat  it,  in 
their  own  inimitable  way,  once  more !  He  was  accompanying 
Henry  Clay,  during  the  month  of  April,  I  think  it  was  in  the 
year  1833,  through  the  county  of  Middlesex,  which  Mr.  Everett 
then  represented  in  Congress,  on  a  visit  to  Lowell.  "  Everett," 
exclaimed  Mr.  Clay,  "  in  Heaven's  name,  what  do  your  constit 
uents  live  on  ?  I  see  nothing  hereabouts  capable  of  supporting 
human  life,  or  animal  life  of  any  sort."  "  Why,  Mr.  Clay,"  re 
plied  Everett,  "  don't  you  see  that  tree  in  the  middle  of  yonder 
field  there  ?  "  "  Yes,  I  do,"  said  Mr.  Clay ;  "  and  a  very  small 
and  miserable  specimen  of  a  tree  it  is ;  there  is  not  a  leaf  or  a  bud 
on  it ;  it  looks  dead  already,  and  hardly  fit  for  firewood."  "  Ah ! " 
said  Mr.  Everett  (in  playful  resentment  of  an  old  impertinence 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY.  15 

to  a  neighboring  New-England  State),  "  it  makes  capital  wooden 
nutmegs!"  Yes,  my  friends,  the  barrenness  of  our  ground  has 
made  our  brains  fertile ;  and  even  the  invention  which  built  up 
Lowell,  has  owed  not  a  little  of  its  stimulus  to  the  sterility  of  the 
surrounding  acres.  The  willing  and  luxuriant  harvests  of  other 
latitudes,  are,  indeed,  unknown  to  us ;  but  who  shall  complain  of 
a  soil  which  has  so  enforced  industry ;  which  has  so  quickened  and 
sharpened  the  wits ;  which  has  so  nourished  independence  and 
freedom ;  which  has  presented  no  temptation  to  make  woman  a 
yoke-fellow  with  the  brutes,  exhibiting  her,  like  those  I  saw  around 
me,  subjected  to  the  hardest  labors  of  the  field ;  and  which,  above 
all,  —  far,  far  above  all,  —  has  so  repelled  and  repudiated  from  its 
culture  every  form  of  human  servitude !  Boast  as  we  will,  and 
as  we  well  may,  of  the  influence  of  free  schools  and  free  govern 
ments  in  moulding  and  training  the  characters  and  careers  of 
New-England  men,  —  and  my  friend,  Mr.  Emerson,  will  tell  you 
all  about  that,  when  his  turn  to  lecture  comes,  —  we  must  not  for 
get  that  there  are  influences  underlying  and  overlying  all  these, 
—  the  influences  of  the  earth  beneath  us  and  of  the  sky  above  us. 
One  of  the  most  popular  of  Old  England's  poets,  even  in  the  very 
piece  in  which  he  proposed  to  illustrate  the  influence  of  education 
and  government  upon  mankind,  —  a  piece  which,  though  fragmen 
tary  and  unfinished,  is  not  unworthy  to  stand  beside  his  own 
exquisite  elegy  in  a  country  churchyard,  —  has  given  expression  to 
this  idea  in  some  noble  lines :  — 

"  Not  but  the  human  fabric  from  the  birth 
Imbibes  the  flavor  of  its  parent  earth ; 
As  various  tracts  enforce  a  various  toil, 
The  manners  speak  the  idiom  of  their  soil. 
An  iron  race  the  mountain-cliffs  maintain, 
Foes  to  the  gentler  genius  of  the  plain." 

One  might  almost  imagine,  indeed,  that  Gray  had  New  England, 
and  New-England  men,  distinctly  in  his  mind,  when  he  adds  :  — 

"  For  where  unwearied  sinews  must  be  found 
With  side-long  plough  to  quell  the  flinty  ground, 
To  turn  the  torrent's  swift-descending  flood, 
To  brave  the  savage  rushing  from  the  wood,  — 
What  wonder  if,  to  patient  valor  train'd, 
They  guard  with  spirit  what  by  strength  they  gain'd  ? " 


16  MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY. 

And  you  all  remember  that  good,  dear,  pious  Mrs.  Barbauld 
has  condensed  the  whole  thought  into  one  of  the  grandest  coup 
lets  in  all  poetry :  — 

"  Man  is  the  nobler  growth  our  realms  supply, 
And  souls  are  ripened  in  our  northern  sky." 

Yes,  my  friends,  we  of  New  England,  after  all,  may  well  thank 
Heaven  that  our  Pilgrim  Fathers  landed  upon  nothing  softer 
than  a  rock,1  and  that  the  Puritan  founders  of  Massachusetts  were 
not  persuaded,  —  as  Oliver  Cromwell  endeavored  to  persuade 
them,  and  would  fain  have  forced  them,  had  he  dared  to  try  it,  — 
to  abandon  their  flinty  glebe  for  the  rich  mould  of  the  tropics.  It 
is  not  enough  for  us  to  be  grateful,  that  the  region  to  which  they 
so  firmly  adhered,  was  not  a  region  exposed  to  such  inundations 
as  have  recently  devastated  so  many  of  the  fields  and  villages 
of  Switzerland,  and  made  such  a  claim  upon  the  sympathy  and 
succor  of  all  who  have  witnessed  the  glories  of  the  Alps,  and  the 
simple  virtues  of  those  who  inhabit  them.  It  is  not  enough  for 
us  to  be  grateful,  that  the  clime  to  which  they  clung  so  tena 
ciously,  is  not  a  clime  subject  to  such  convulsions  as  have  recently 
swallowed  up  whole  cities  on  our  own  hemisphere ;  and  the  mere 
liability  to  which  is  itself  sufficient  to  unnerve  and  demoralize 
even  those  who  may  escape  all  actual  damage  to  person  or 
property.  It  is  not  enough  for  us  to  be  grateful,  that  the  bay 
around  which  they  nestled  and  clustered,  had  no  smouldering 
volcano  on  its  right  hand  or  on  its  left,  threatening  at  every 
outbreak,  like  Vesuvius  or  ^Etna  at  this  moment,  to  over 
whelm  all  within  its  reach  with  a  torrent  of  burning  lava.  It  is 
not  enough  for  us  to  be  grateful,  that  the  land  and  the  sea  which 
they  refused  so  obstinately  to  abandon  or  exchange,  were  free 
alike  from  the  corrupting  and  distracting  influences  of  mines  of 
silver  or  of  gold,  and  of  fisheries  of  coral  or  of  pearl ;  though 
I  may  not  forget  that,  in  these  latter  years,  some  of  our  not 
very  distant  hills  have  occasionally  been  suspected  of  gold, 
and  that  a  few  exquisite  pearls  have  actually  been  found,  in 
the  streams  near  Sandwich,  not  far  from  where  the  Pilgrims 
landed.  But,  beyond  and  above  all  this,  may  we  not  well  thank 
God,  as  we  review  our  history,  even  for  that  springless  climate, 
of  short  summers  and  long  winters,  of  late  and  early  frosts, 

i  See  p.  27. 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS  EARLY   HISTORY.  17 

of  sharp  and  sudden  vicissitudes,  which  has  demanded,  from 
first  to  last,  the  steady  and  sturdy  struggle  of  intelligent  free 
men  for  existence  and  for  bread  ?  May  we  not  well  thank  God 
for  a  soil,  from  which  no  North-western  Ordinance  or  Missouri 
Compromise,  no  Wilmot  Proviso  or  Constitutional  Amendment, 
was  ever  needed  to  shut  out  slavery;  and  for  a  temperature 
which  has  braced  up  our  children  to  a  manly,  vigorous,  indepen 
dent,  self-sustaining,  and  self-relying  exercise  of  their  own  thews 
and  sinews  and  brains  in  every  field  of  useful  labor  or  worthy 
enterprise  ? 

Who  is  not  willing  to  unite  with  me  in  exclaiming,  in  this  sense 
at  least,  —  Let  Massachusetts  be  "  left  out  in  the  cold  "  for  ever, 
with  nothing  but  ice  and  granite  for  her  natural  exports,  rather 
than  have  all  the  manhood  melted  and  thawed  out  of  her  children, 
as  it  was  out  of  so  many  of  those  whom  I  saw  by  the  way-side,  too 
limp  for  any  thing  but  to  bask  in  the  sun  and  beg  ?  Who  can 
say  that  upon  a  different  soil,  and  under  other  skies,  even  New- 
England  principles,  as  we  call  them,  would  have  been  proof 
against  the  temptation  of  establishing,  or  at  least  permanently 
tolerating,  domestic  institutions  which  have  been  so  fatal  else 
where,  and  which  it  has  cost  at  last  such  a  deluge  of  blood  and 
treasure  to  abolish?  Who  can  say  that  if  the  pilot  of  the 
Pilgrims,  to  whom,  justly  or  unjustly,  treachery  has  sometimes 
been  imputed,  had  conducted  the  Mayflower  nearer  to  the 
Southern  Cross,  instead  of  steering  her  ever  by  that  blessed 
North  Star ;  and  if  the  Massachusetts  colony  had  followed  in 
their  wake,  —  we,  their  descendants,  might  not  at  this  moment 
be  suffering,  as  so  many  of  our  brethren  elsewhere  are  suffering, 
from  the  destitution  and  desolation,  directly  or  indirectly  brought 
upon  ourselves,  by  a  vain  struggle,  in  the  interests  and  under  the 
influence  of  slavery,  to  overthrow  that  National  Government, 
and  rend  asunder  that  Constitutional  Union,  which  it  is  now 
our  pride  and  glory  to  have  defended  and  preserved  for  our 
children? 

Such,  my  friends,  were  some  of  the  thoughts,  on  the  influence 
of  soil  and  climate  upon  the  character  and  history  of  New  Eng 
land,  which  came  swarming  through  my  mind  as  I  whirled  along 
that  magnificent  Corniche  road  last  winter,  with  the  letter  of  my 
friend  Dr.  Ellis  in  my  hand.  Such  were  the  leading  ideas  of  the 

2 


18  MASSACHUSETTS   AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY. 

lecture  I  then  conceived,  and  proposed  to  prepare  deliberately,  if 
I  should  be  called  on  to  prepare  any  thing,  for  this  occasion ;  and 
which  I  thought  might  be  worked  up  into  a  not  altogether  inap 
propriate  Introductory  to  such  a  course.  But  a  thousand  unfore 
seen  circumstances  of  foreign  travel,  and  of  domestic  and  per 
sonal  experience,  soon  occurred  to  obliterate  the  whole  subject 
from  my  mind  ;  and  I  returned  home,  not  long  ago,  without  ever 
thinking  of  it  again,  and  without  a  note  on  which  I  could  rely 
for  reviving  and  reconstructing  the  train  of  ideas.  And  all 
that  I  have  been  able  to  do,  since  my  return,  has  been  to  recall 
thus  hastily  the  associations  of  time  and  place,  to  gather  up  the 
tangled  threads  wherever  I  could  lay  hold  of  them  in  my  memory, 
and  to  present  to  you  thus  crudely,  what  I  would  so  gladly  have 
elaborated,  illustrated,  and  perfected.  If,  however,  by  throwing 
myself  into  the  gap,  —  as  I  have  done,  at  the  last  moment,  and  at 
the  imperative  call  of  others,  —  I  shall  have  prepared  the  way  for 
the  instructive  and  well-considered  and  eloquent  discourses  which 
I  know  are  to  follow,  my  hour  will  not  have  been  spent  in  vain ; 
and  you,  I  am  sure,  will  all  pardon  me  for  so  desultory  and  dis 
cursive  an  utterance. 

I  must  not  let  you  go,  however,  without  reverting,  in  a  few 
closing  remarks,  to  the  original  purpose  of  these  lectures,  and  to 
the  general  objects  of  the  Society  under  whose  auspices  they 
have  been  undertaken.  There  is  something  remarkable,  and 
more  than  remarkable,  —  there  is  something  quite  wonderful,  I 
think,  —  about  the  way  in  which  the  history  of  this  old  Common 
wealth  of  ours,  and  the  history  of  New  England,  of  which  it 
was  the  capital  colony,  have  been  preserved,  cared  for,  and 
"  treasured  up  as  for  a  life  beyond  life,"  from  the  very  outset  of 
their  career.  Not  only  are  we  spared  the  pains  of  seeking  the 
story  of  our  origin  in  myths  and  fables,  in  traditions  and 
legends,  like  the  people  of  so  many  other  lands,  but  we  may  find 
it  written  out  for  us  at  the  moment,  by  those  who  could  tell,  us 
all  that  they  saw,  and  a  most  important  part  of  which  they 
were. 

Hardly  had  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth  in  1620,  before 
William  Bradford,  who  was  so  soon  to  succeed  the  lamented 
Carver  as  their  governor,  began  to  collect  the  original  letters 
and  papers,  which,  ten  years  afterwards,  he  commenced  "  piecing 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY.  19 

up  at  times  of  leisure "  (to  use  his  own  phrase),  until  he  had 
completed  a  connected  and  careful  account  of  the  first  twenty- 
seven  years  of  that  pioneer  plantation.  This  invaluable  work, 
—  after  remaining  in  manuscript  for  more  than  two  hundred 
years,  known  only  by  a  few  citations  which  had  been  made  from 
it  by  later  writers,  who  had  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  consulting 
it,  —  after  having  disappeared  from  all  view,  and  eluded  all 
search,  for  more  than  half  a  century ;  and  after  having  been 
lamented  over  like  one  of  the  lost  books  of  Livy  —  to  us,  if 
not  to  the  world  at  large,  a  thousand  times  more  precious  than 
the  whole  of  Livy,  —  was  at  last  discovered  in  1855,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  in  the  library  of  the  Bishop  of 
London  at  Fulham,  and  was  printed  for  the  first  time,  by  this 
Society,  in  1856,  from  an  exact  copy  made  for  the  purpose,  under 
the  faithful  editorship  of  our  present  accomplished  Recording  Sec 
retary,  Mr.  Charles  Deane. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Massachusetts  Company  proper,  with 
their  charter,  had  not  left  their  final  anchorage  at  the  Cowes, 
near  the  Isle  of  Wight,  in  1630,  before  the  governor  of  that 
colony  (John  Winthrop)  had  made  the  first  entry  in  a  journal  or 
history,  which  he  continued  from  day  to  day,  and  from  year  to 
year,  until  his  death  in  1648-9.  That  work,  too,  remained  in 
perishable  manuscript  for  a  century  and  a  half.  The  original 
was  in  three  volumes ;  the  two  first  of  which  were  printed,  for 
the  first  time,  at  Hartford,  in  1790,  from  an  inaccurate  copy,  which 
had  been  commenced  by  Governor  Trumbull,  with  a  preface 
and  dedication  by  the  great  lexicographer,  Noah  Webster,  who 
subsequently  confessed  that  he  had  never  even  read  the  original 
manuscript.  It  remained  for  one  whom  we  now  recognize,  since 
the  death  of  our  veteran  Quincy,  as  the  venerable  senior  mem 
ber  of  our  Society,  and  its  former  President  (James  Savage),  to 
decipher  and  annotate  and  edit  the  whole ;  for  lo !  in  1816, 
the  third  volume,  of  which  nothing  had  been  seen  or  heard  for 
more  than  sixty  years,  turned  up  in  the  tower  of  the  Old  South 
Meeting-house!  The  Rev.  Thomas  Prince,  the  pastor  of  that 
church,  who  kept  his  library  in  that  tower,  and  is  known  to  have 
had  all  three  of  the  volumes  in  1755,  died  without  returning  this 
third  volume  to  the  family  of  the  author,  from  whom  I  have  the 
best  reason  to  think  they  were  all  borrowed.  And  so  in  1825-6, 


20  MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY   HISTORY. 

one  hundred  and  ninety-five  years  after  that  first  entry,  on  that 
Easter  Monday,  while  the  "  Arbella  "  was  "  riding  at  the  Cowes," 
these  annals  of  the  first  nineteen  years  of  the  Massachusetts 
colony  were  published  in  a  correct  and  complete  form.  But  as 
if  to  illustrate  the  risks  to  which  they  had  been  so  long  exposed, 
and  to  signalize  the  perils  they  had  so  providentially  escaped, 
one  of  the  original  volumes  was  destroyed  by  a  memorable  fire 
in  Court  Street,  before  Mr.  Savage  had  finished*  the  laborious 
corrections  and  annotations  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself. 

Here,  then,  we  find  the  striking  fact  of  the  two  governors  of 
the  two  originally  independent  colonies  of  Plymouth  and  Mas 
sachusetts  Bay,  which  afterwards,  in  1691,  were  combined  in  a 
single  Commonwealth,  —  the  two  men  who  were  the  leading 
witnesses  of  all  that  occurred,  and  the  leading  actors  in  all  that 
was  done,  —  preparing  careful  histories  of  the  rise  and  prog 
ress  of  each,  and  leaving  them  in  manuscript  at  their  death: 
Those  manuscripts  we  find  remaining  unprinted,  uncopied,  and 
seemingly  uncared  for,  during  a  period  of  a  century  and  a  half 
and  two  centuries  respectively  ;  exposed  to  all  and  more  than  all 
the  common  accidents  which  wait  upon  ancient  papers,  —  the 
moth,  the  bookworm,  the  damp,  the  flames,  —  owing  to  the  un 
settled  and  troubled  condition  of  the  colonies,  from  time  to  time, 
and  almost  all  the  time :  For  instance,  when  the  British  cavalry 
occupied  the  Old  South  Church,  as  a  riding-school  and  a  stable, 
in  1775,  and  took  Governor  Winthrop's  old  house  (which  stood 
next)  for  firewood,  both  of  these  precious  manuscripts  were  in 
the  tower,  where  Prince  had  left  them  ;  and  both  were  doomed, 
to  all  human  eyes,  to  be  used  as  kindling ;  but  they  were  really 
destined  for  another  sort  of  kindling :  Both  of  them  we  find  re 
appearing  in  the  end,  —  substantially  every  leaf  of  them ; —  one 
of  them,  and  a  large  part  of  the  other,  turning  up  at  last  where 
they  would  least  have  been  looked  for,  or  have  been  imagined  to 
be  ;  and  both  of  them  waiting,  —  waiting,  as  it  were,  for  the  ful 
ness  of  time,  —  to  be  published,  as  they  have  been,  by  those  most 
capable  of  appreciating  them  and  doing  them  justice. 

What  is  there  in  the  curiosities  of  secular  literature  more 
striking!  Surely,  we  may  say,  so  far  as  Massachusetts  history 
is  concerned,  "  There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends,  rough- 
hew  them  how  we  will."  But  this  is  but  the  beginning  of  the 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY.  21 

story.  While  these  original  and  more  authentic  accounts  of 
the  infant  Commonwealth  were  still  scarcely  known  to  exist  be 
yond  the  family  circle  of  their  authors,  —  as  early  as  1654, — 
Edward  Johnson,  one  of  the  intensest  of  Puritans,  publishes  in 
London,  his  "  Wonder-working  Providence  of  Sion's  Saviour  in 
New  England,"  which,  though  written  in  a  most  inflated  and 
bombastic  style,  and  full  of  blunders  and  doggerel,  contains  many 
most  important  and  valuable  facts,  and  is  worthy  of  being  remem 
bered  as  the  first  printed  book  of  New-England  history.  A  beau 
tiful  edition  of  it,  with  a  valuable  Introduction,  has  recently  been 
published  by  Mr.  W.  F.  Poole,  the  late  faithful  Librarian  of  the 
Boston  Athenaeum.  Then  came  Nathaniel  Morton,  a  nephew  of 
Governor  Bradford,  with  his  "  Memorial  of  Plymouth  Colony," 
abounding,  also,  in  important  references  to  the  Massachusetts 
Colony  proper,  published  originally  at  our  Cambridge  in  1669, 
and  republished  in  1826,  under  the  admirable  editorship  of  another 
former  President  of  this  Society,  —  the  late  excellent  Judge 
Davis. 

And  now  "  draws  hitherward,  —  I  know  him  by  his  stride,"  — 
the  giant  of  New-England  early  literature,  —  the  marvellous  and 
marvel-loving  Cotton  Mather,  with  a  voracity  for  every  thing  re 
lating  to  our  colonial  condition  and  history  as  insatiate  as  his 
own  vanity;  seeking  and  searching  for  something  new  and 
strange,  like  those  men  of  ancient  Athens  whom  Paul  depicted; 
of  a  credulity  which  swallowed  every  thing  which  was  told  him, 
and  a  diligence  which  digested  almost  every  thing  which  he  swal 
lowed  ;  and  publishing,  in  London,  in  1702,  after  a  prodigious 
amount  of  strugglings  and  wrestlings,  of  prayers  and  fastings,  of 
visions  by  day  and  dreams  by  night,  a  huge  folio  volume,  en 
titled  "  Magnalia  Christi  Americana,"  or,  as  the  titlepage  has  it, 
"  The  First  book  of  the  New-English  History,  reporting  the  De 
sign  whereow,  the  Manner  wherein,  and  the  People  where&y,  the 
several  Colonies  of  New  England  were  planted,  by  the  endeavour 
of  Cotton  Mather;"  —  containing  a  monstrous  mass  of  informa 
tion  and  speculation,  of  error  and  gossip,  of  biography  and  his 
tory,  of  italics  and  capitals,  of  classical  quotations,  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  of  original  epitaphs,  Latin  and  English,  in  prose 
and  in  verse,  which,  as  old  Polonius  said  of  Hamlet's  actors, 
"  either  for  tragedy,  comedy,  history,  pastoral,  pastoral-comical, 


22  MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY   HISTORY. 

historical-pastoral,  tragical-comical,  scene  individable  or  poem 
unlimited,"  has  hardly  a  parallel  in  the  world.  Let  me  not  seem 
to  disparage  or  undervalue  Cotton  Mather,  —  a  perfect  Dr.  Pan- 
gloss,  as  he  was  in  many  particulars,  —  for  with  all  his  foibles 
and  all  his  faults,  all  his  credulity  and  all  his  vanity,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  he  did  a  really  great  work  for  New-England  history. 
The  lives  of  our  Worthies  could  not  have  been  written  without 
him  ;  while  his  "  Essay  to  do  Good"  is  known  to  have  given  the 
earliest  incentive  to  the  wonderful  career  of  New  England's 
most  wonderful  son,  —  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Passing  rapidly  now  over  Church's  "  King  Philip's  War," 
first  printed  in  1716,  of  which  a  beautiful  edition  has  re 
cently  been  added  to  "  the  New-England  Library  "  by  the  Rev. 
Henry  Martyn  Dexter ;  and  John  Dunton's  "  Letters  from  New 
England,"  in  1686,  just  printed  for  the  Prince  Society,  from  the 
original  manuscript  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  under  the  careful 
editorship  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Whitmore,  —  we  come  next,  in  order  of 
date,  to  the  "  Chronological  History  of  New  England  "  by  the  accu 
rate  and  indefatigable  Thomas  Prince  himself,  whose  first  volume 
was  published  in  1736  ;  and,  who  in  1755,  began  a  second  volume, 
of  which  only  three  serial  numbers  were  printed  before  his  death, 
in  1758.  Then  we  have  the  valuable  historical  "  Summary  "  of 
Dr.  William  Douglas,  published  in  Boston,  in  numbers,  the  first 
of  them  in  1746-7 ;  and  the  whole  two  volumes  of  which  were 
completed  in  1751. 

And  now  appears  upon  the  scene,  as  an  historian  of  Massa 
chusetts,  another  of  her  colonial  governors,  whose  name  was  so 
identified,  justly  or  unjustly,  with  the  Stamp  Act,  and  others  of 
those  acts  of  British  oppression  which  drove  us  to  rebellion,  and 
through  rebellion  to  independence,  that  it  long  was  held  in  too 
much  of  passionate  abhorrence  to  allow  of  any  justice  being 
done  to  any  thing  he  did  or  said  or  wrote ;  but  who,  take  him 
for  all  in  all,  did  as  much  for  the  history  of  this  his  native  State, 
and  did  it  as  well,  as  any  man  who  has  lived  before  or  since. 
Let  us  not  fail  to  do  justice  to  his  memory  in  this  respect. 
Governor  Hutchinson's  first  volume  was  published  in  1764. 
The  second  volume,  almost  ready  for  the  press,  was  in  his  house 
in  Garden-Court  Street,  on  the  26th  of  August,  1765,  when  it 
was  so  shamefully  sacked  and  pillaged  by  a  mob.  Hutchinson, 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND   ITS  EARLY  HISTORY.  23 

as  the  mob  approached,  was  engaged  in  bearing  to  a  place  of 
safety  a  beloved  daughter  who  had  refused  to  quit  his  side,  and 
was  thus  compelled  to  abandon  his  precious  papers  to  their  fate. 
Every  thing  was  destroyed,  or  thrown  out  of  the  windows ;  and 
the  scattered  pages  of  this  second  volume  of  his  history  were 
left  lying  in  the  street  for  several  hours  in  a  soaking  rain.  But 
thanks  to  the  care  and  pains  of  the  Rev.  Andrew  Eliot,  one  of 
•the  servants,  then  and  always,  of  the  good  God  to  whom  we  owe 
the  marvellous  preservation  of  those  other  and  earlier  manu 
scripts  of  those  other  and  earlier  governors,  all  but  eight  or  ten 
sheets  were  collected  and  saved ;  and  so  much  of  them  was  still 
legible  that,  in  spite  of  the  muddy  footprints  of  the  Vandals  who 
had  trampled  on  them,  the  author  was  able  to  supply  the  rest, 
transcribe  the  whole,  and  publish  it  in  1767.*  Still  a  third  volume, 
hardly  less  valuable  than  either,  and  written  with  an  almost  judi 
cial  fairness  and  a  wonderful  freedom  from  prejudice,  consider 
ing  the  treatment  he  had  received,  remained  in  manuscript  for 
half  a  century  after  his  death  in  1780,  and  was  only  rescued  from 
perdition,  and  published  in  1828,  through  the  persevering  efforts 
of  Mr.  Savage,  and  other  members  of  our  Society. 

I  must  not  forget  that  still  another  governor  of  Massachusetts, 
James  Sullivan,  the  first  President  of  our  Society,  early  devoted 
his  leisure  from  professional  and  public  labors  to  the  preparation 
of  a  history  of  his  native  Province  of  Maine,  —  then  a  part  of 
Massachusetts,  —  and  published  it  in  1795.  I  must  not  forget 
the  excellent  account  of  that  great  epoch  in  Massachusetts  his 
tory,  commonly  called  "  Shays's  Rebellion,"  published  in  1788  by 
George  Richards  Minot  (the  father  of  our  venerable  William) ; 
and  followed,  in  1798  and  1803,  by  two  substantial  volumes  of 
the  history  of  the  province,  from  1748  to  1765.  I  must  not  for 
get  either  the  really  great  work  of  one  who  was  so  long  our 
Corresponding  Secretary,  and  whose  accomplished  son,  —  who  so 
well  illustrates  the  idea  of  ancient  mythology,  "  one  power  of 
physic,  melody,  and  song"  —  is  announced  among  the  lecturers 
of  our  course ;  I  mean  the  "  American  Annals  "  of  the  late  Dr. 
Abiel  Holmes,  published  in  1805,  and  abounding  in  dates  and 
facts  of  Massachusetts  and  New  England,  as  well  as  of  National 
interest.  Still  less  must  I  forget  the  elaborate  History  of  New 
England,  by  the  Rev.  William  Hubbard,  an  early  minister  of 


24  MASSACHUSETTS   AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY. 

Ipswich,  completed  in  manuscript  as  long  ago  as  1682,  but  which 
it  remained  for  this  Society,  with  the  patronage  of  the  Legislature 
of  Massachusetts,  to  publish  for  the  first  time  as  lately  as  1815. 

Time  would  fail  me,  or  certainly  your  patience  would  be  ex 
hausted,  my  friends,  were  I  to  attempt  to  speak,  as  I  ought  to 
speak,  of  all  the  more  recent  contributions  and  contributors  to 
the  historical  illustration  of  our  Commonwealth,  and  of  New 
England ;  of  the  Rev.  John  Eliot,  and  of  Alden  Bradford ;  of 
Dr.  Felt's  Ecclesiastical  History,  and  Governor  Washburn's 
Judicial  History;  of  Drake's  comprehensive  and  elaborate 
History  of  Boston ;  of  Quincy's  Harvard  University ;  of  Young's 
Chronicles  of  Plymouth  and  of  Massachusetts,  and  of  the 
Records  of  those  old  Colonies,  edited  by  our  worthy  Mayor,  Dr. 
Shurtleff;  of  Mr.  Savage's  Genealogical  History  of  New  Eng 
land  ;  of  Tudor's  James  Otis ;  of  Richard  Frothingham's  Siege  of 
Boston,  and  Life  of  Warren ;  of  Sabine's  Fisheries  and  Loyal 
ists;  of  Dr.  Holland's  Western  Massachusetts,  and  General 
Schouler's  Massachusetts  in  the  late  Civil  War,  with  its 
admirable  portrait  of  the  lamented  Andrew,  and  its  vivid 
presentment  of  many  of  the  stirring  scenes  through  which  we 
have  so  lately  passed ;  of  the  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Adams 
by  his  distinguished  grandson ;  of  Barry's  Massachusetts ;  of 
Bancroft's  Colonial  Period ;  of  Upham's  recent  and  most  inter 
esting  History  of  Witchcraft ;  and  of  Palfrey's  consummate  and 
crowning  work  on  New  England,  which  may  fitly  complete 
the  calendar,  and  which  is  worthy,  I  need  not  say,  of  far  more 
than  any  mere  passing  commendation  of  mine. 

I  have  omitted,  I  doubt  not,  in  this  running  catalogue,  many 
names  which  deserve  to  be  mentioned ;  and  I  have  said  nothing 
of  what  has  been  done  so  well,  in  their  Collections  and  Registers, 
by  our  sister  societies  of  other  States,  and  by  kindred  associations 
in  our  own  State ;  or  of  the  numerous  town  histories,  and  church 
histories,  which  have  been  so  faithfully  written.  But  I  have  said 
enough  to  recall  to  your  remembrance  the  fact,  that  while  New 
England  has  furnished  not  a  few  able  and  brilliant  historians 
and  biographers  for  some  of  the  great  political  and  literary  epochs 
of  other  lands,  ancient  and  modern,  and  for  some  of  the  great 
statesmen  of  other  parts  of  our  own  land,  —  in  our  lamented 
.  Prescott  and  Sparks  and  Felton,  and  in  our  living  Ticknor  and 


MASSACHUSETTS   AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY.  25 

Motley  and  Parkman  and  Kirk,  —  her  own  history  has  by  no 
means  been  neglected  ;  but  that  there  has  been  a  most  striking 
succession  of  men,  —  many  of  them  governors,  judges,  ministers, 
counsellors,  men  of  renown,  famous  in  their  generation,  —  who 
have  been  moved,  as  by  a  common  impulse,  to  keep  the  record  of 
New  England,  and  of  Massachusetts  in  particular,  and  to  illus 
trate  the  history  of  their  rise  and  progress;  some  of  whose 
works,  like  those  of  William  Bradford  and  John  Winthrop  and 
Thomas  Hutchinson,  have  come  down  to  us  under  circumstances 
of  almost  romantic  interest ;  and  all  of  which  together  can  hardly 
fail  to  leave  the  impression  on  a  thoughtful  mind,  —  I  will  not 
admit  that  it  need  be  a  superstitious  mind,  —  that  for  good  or  for 
evil,  for  encouragement  or  for  warning,  for  our  glory  or  for  our 
shame,  that  history  was  not  destined  to  be  lost  to  mankind. 

But  I  could  not  be  forgiven,  —  I  could  not  forgive  myself, — 
were  I  to  close  without  an  allusion  to  one  other  name,  which  I 
have  purposely  reserved  to  the  last,  —  the  name  of  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Jeremy  Belknap,  the  recognized  founder  of  our  Society,  whose 
History  of  New  Hampshire,  in  three  volumes,  published  in 
1784,  1791,  and  1792,  and  his  two  volumes  of  early  American 
biography,  published  in  1794  and  1798,  are  full  of  importance 
to  the  work  of  which  I  have  been  speaking.  Under  his 
lead,  our  Society  was  organized  in  1791,  —  to  gather  up  the 
fragments,  that  nothing  be  lost,  —  composed  of  ten  members, 
at  the  outset,  increased  to  thirty,  and  afterwards  to  sixty  in  all, 
and  now  limited  to  a  hundred  members  throughout  the  Common 
wealth.  Beginning  their  career  upon  the  most  economical  scale ; 
ordering  their  Treasurer,  Judge  Tudor,  to  buy  "  twelve  Windsor 
green  elbow-chairs,  a  plain,  pine  table,  painted,  with  a  drawer 
and  lock  and  key,  and  an  inkstand ; "  and  with  no  resources  but 
an  assessment  of  two  dollars  a  year  upon  each  member,  —  they 
proceeded  to  collect  papers  and  pamphlets  and  books,  and  to 
publish,  scrap  by  scrap,  as  an  appendix  or  a  preamble  to  a  maga 
zine  called  "  The  American  Apollo,"  whatever  original  manu 
scripts,  relating  to  New  England,  they  were  able  to  pick  up ; 
the  very  first  of  these  scraps  having  been  published  on  the  6th 
of  January,  1792,  just  seventy-six  years  ago  to-morrow.  In 
these  latter  years,  the  liberal  and  noble  benefactions  of  Samuel 
Appleton  and  Thomas  Dowse  and  George  Peabody  have  added 


26  MASSACHUSETTS   AND   ITS   EARLY   HISTORY. 

greatly  to  their  library  and  to  their  funds,  and  have  enabled  them 
to  go  on  with  their  work  more  conspicuously  and  more  confi 
dently.  But  the  enormous  cost  of  printing,  and  the  inadequate 
sale  of  their  volumes,  are  serious  impediments  to  their  progress ; 
and  this  very  course  of  lectures  has  been  arranged,  as  a  labor  of 
love  on  the  part  of  the  members,  not  without  at  least  a  secondary 
view  to  eking  out  the  insufficiencies  of  our  treasury. 

Forty-five  volumes  of  Collections  and  Proceedings  have  already 
been  printed,  —  many  of  them  containing  papers  of  unspeakable 
importance  and  interest ;  and  some  of  them  throwing  a  light  upon 
the  formation  of  our  institutions,  the  establishment  of  our  towns 
and  schools,  and  the  inner  life  of  the  earlier  and  later  settlers  of 
New  England,  which  can  be  found  nowhere  else.  Other  papers 
of  equal  interest  and  value  are  awaiting  the  press.  Without  any 
very  large  addition  to  our  resources,  if  it  were  only  secured  before 
some  of  our  members,  now  in  my  eye,  but  whose  names  I  forbear 
to  mention,  shall  have  lost  the  taste  and  the  faculty  for  this  sort 
of  labor,  our  valuable  manuscripts  might  be  printed,  and  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  accident,  as  fast  as  is  desirable.  And  it  is 
easy  to  suggest  a  legitimate  and  effectual  mode  of  relief,  —  in  the 
wider  circulation  and  sale  of  our  Collections,  —  if  we  could  only 
accomplish  its  adoption.  We  cannot  hope,  indeed,  that  our 
volumes  will  find  any  great  number  of  purchasers  or  readers,  in 
competition  with  the  illustrated  poems  or  sensation  novels,  of 
which  the  tenth  or  the  twentieth  thousand  are  advertised  in  suc 
cessive  months.  But  there  are  more  than  three  hundred  towns  in 
Massachusetts.  In  the  public  or  social  libraries  of  every  one  of 
them,  there  ought  to  be  a  complete  set,  or  as  complete  a  set  as  is 
still  possible,  of  these  Historical  Collections.  Everywhere  we 
observe  liberal  men,  residents  or  natives  of  these  towns,  found 
ing,  or  endowing,  or  aiding  these  public  libraries.  If  we  could 
find  enough  of  such  liberal  men,  who,  severally  or  jointly,  would 
be  responsible  for  placing  sets  of  these  Collections  in  only  one- 
half  of  the  town  libraries,  —  and  I  know  not  what  more  appropriate 
New- Year's  present  could  be  made  by  any  one  to  the  place  of 
his  nativity,  or  of  his  winter  or  summer  residence,  —  I  should 
feel  the  greatest  confidence,  that  we  and  our  successors  could  go 
on,  without  let  or  hindrance,  to  continue  the  story  of  this  noble 
Commonwealth  in  all  its  earlier,  and  in  all  its  later,  relations  to 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND  ITS  EARLY  HISTORY.  27 

New  England  and  to  the  nation  at  large, — "nothing  extenuating, 
nor  setting  down  aught  in  malice,"  but  giving  the  truth,  the 
whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  after  the  manner  and  ex 
ample  of  those  who  have  preceded  us. 

It  is  a  work,  my  friends,  which,  you  will  all  agree  with  me 
ought  not  to  be  left  incomplete.  We  owe  it  to  the  memory  of 
our  fathers,  that  no  authentic  account  of  their  lives  and  labors 
should  be  lost.  We  owe  it  to  our  children,  that  the  great  ex 
amples  of  piety  and  purity,  of  endurance  and  enterprise,  of 
wisdom  and  patriotism  and  heroism,  with  which  our  earlier  and 
our  later  annals  abound,  should  be  handed  down  to  them  in  all 
the  exactness  of  contemporaneous  records.  We  owe  it  to  our 
selves  not  to  be  behindhand,  at  this  day  of  our  prosperity  and 
abundance,  in  doing  our  share  towards  completing  a  history,  which 
so  many  good  and  great  men,  under  so  many  disadvantages  and 
discouragements,  have  labored  at  so  lovingly  and  so  successfully, 
and  which  would  almost  seem  to  have  been  watched  over  from 
the  beginning  by  a  higher  than  human  Power. 


NOTES. 
PAGE  5,  LINE  24. 

I  am  glad  to  say  that,  only  six  weeks  after  the  delivery  of  this  lecture,  a  colos 
sal  statue  of  Columbus,  by  an  accomplished  American  artist  (Miss  Emma  Stebbins), 
which  is  described  as  "  grand  in  its  conception  and  beautiful  in  its  execution,"  was 
presented  to  the  Commissioners  of  the  Central  Park  at  New  York,  by  the  Hon. 
Marshall  0.  Roberts,  an  eminent  and  munificent  merchant  of  that  city,  and  is  im 
mediately  to  be  added  to  the  decorations  of  that  noble  park. 

PAGE  16,  LINE  8. 

An  accomplished  and  classical  friend  has  reminded  me  that  Herodotus  (the  old 
father  of  History),  at  the  end  of  his  last  book  (Calliope),  makes  Cyrus  say  : 

yap  in.  robv  pahaKtiv  %upuv  fjiakanovg  uvdpaf  yiveadai." 


THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES 


OP  THE 


FOUNDERS     OF    THE    MASSACHUSETTS    COLONY. 

"TANTUM  KEIJGIO  POTUIT." 


BY   REV.    GEORGE    E.    ELLIS,    D.D. 


THE   AIMS  AND   PURPOSES 

OF  THE 

FOUNDERS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  COLONY.1 

"TANTUM   RELIGIO  POTUIT." 


I  AM  to  speak  of  the  Aims  and  Purposes  of  the  Founders  of 
the  Colony,  now  the  State,  of  Massachusetts.  What  were 
the  ends  and  objects  of  their  enterprise  ?  what  its  motive  and 
its  design?  It  ought  to  be  easy  for  us  to  meet  these  questions 
with  a  full  and  sufficient  answer.  We  have  many  and  very 
distinct  avowals  from  most  of  the  leaders  in  that  enterprise. 
From  these,  digested  and  harmonized,  we  might  well  expect  to 
learn  their  real  intent.  And  if  it  be  suggested  —  as  it  often  has 
been  —  that  these  avowals  of  theirs  were  not  frank  disclosures 
of  their  real  motives,  but  were  misleading  or  deceptive,  designed 
to  cover  their  secret  purposes,  which  it  would  not  have  been 
safe  or  for  their  own  ultimate  success  to  reveal,  then  we  have 
another  means  of  reaching  the  truth.  On  the  principle  that 
actions  speak  louder  than  words,  we  have  a  sure  interpretation 
of  their  motives  in  their  deeds,  in  the  course  which  they  pursued, 
in  the  measures  which  they  originated,  in  the  records  of  their 
legislation  and  administration,  and  in  their  practical  manage 
ment  of  their  allairs. 

If  the  views  which  are  now  to  be  presented  have  the  warrant 
of  truth,  it  will  appear  that  there  is  no  occasion  for  charging 
them  with  insincerity,  or  with  secrecy;  and  that  their  avowed 
motives  were  put  into  their  actions. 

l  Less  than  half  of  the  matter  of  the  following  Lecture,  with  the  authorities 
quoted  in  it,  was  read  on  its  delivery.  The  extracts  from  documents  on  which  its 
statements  and  arguments  are  based,  are  here  printed  at  length.  • 


32  THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OP  THE 


It  may  as  well  be  stated  distinctly,  at  the  start,  that  I  intend 
to  controvert,  or  at  least  to  qualify  and  correct,  the  current 
opinion,  the  so-called  popular  and  generally  accepted  idea,  of  the 
motive  of  their  enterprise.  An  error,  of  the  sort  denned  as  the 
suppression  of  the  truth,  has  worked  into  our  history.  By  some 
strange  process,  the  key  has  been  lost  to  modern  use  which  alone 
can  make  it  intelligible  as  a  whole,  and  reveal  the  consistency 
of  its  parts.  Inadvertence  and  misconstruction,  rather  than  any 
intentional  unfairness,  have  confused  and  mystified  this  subject. 

Pr.  Palfrey,  the  latest,  and  incomparably  the  best,  of  our  his 
torians,  —  so  thorough  and  able  and  trustworthy  indeed,  that 
there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  always  be  the  last  of  them, 
—  after  rehearsing  preliminaries,  and  bringing  the  founders  of 
Massachusetts  to  these  shores,  gives  us  this  sentence  :  — 

"  As  a  corporation,  the  company  had  obtained  the  ownership  of  a  large 
American  territory,  on  which  it  designed  to  place  a  colony  which  should 
be  a  refuge  for  civil  and  religious  freedom." x 

But  on  the  very  preceding  page  the  historian  has  quoted  the 
words  of  Winthrop,  the  governor  and  master-spirit  of  the  colony, 
as  found  in  a  beautiful  little  treatise,  called  "  A  Model  of  Chris 
tian  Charity,"  written  by  him  on  his  ocean  passage  hither. 
These  are  the  words  :  — 

"  It  is  by  a  mutual  consent,  through  a  special  overruling  Providence, 
and  a  more  than  ordinary  approbation  of  the  churches  of  Christ  the 
work  we  have  in  hand,  to  seek  out  a  place  of  cohabitation  and  consort- 
ship,  under  a  due  form  of  government,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical."2 

1  Hist,  of  New  Eng.,  vol.  i.  p.  314. 

2  The  spirit  of  earnest  and  gentle  devoutness  which  runs  through  this  little  essay 
gives  us  an  engaging  revelation  of  the  character  of  the  writer.     Though  it  is  anti 
cipating  a  point  to  be  more  emphatically  insisted  upon  by  and  by,  another  quotation 
from  the  essay  may  be  introduced  here.    It  will  prepare  us  for  a  further  dealing 
with  more  matter  that  is  like  it. 

"  Thus  stands  the  cause  between  God  and  us.  We  are  entered  into  Covenant 
with  Him  for  this  worke.  We  have  taken  out  a  Commission.  The  Lord  hath 
given  us  leave  to  drawe  our  own  articles.  We  have  professed  to  enterprise  these 
and  those  accounts,  upon  these  and  those  ends.  We  have  hereupon  besought  Him 
of  favour  and  blessing.  Now  if  the  Lord  shall  please  to  heare  us,  and  bring  us  in 
peace  to  the  place  we  desire,  then  hath  hee  ratified  this  covenant  and  sealed  our 
Commission,  and  will  expect  a  strict  performance  of  the  articles  contained  in  it ;  but 
if  wee  shall  neglect  the  observation  of  these  articles,  which  are  the  ends  wee  have 
propounded,  and,  dissembling  with  our  God,  shall  fall  to  embrace  this  present  world 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  33 

There  is  a  wide  discrepancy  between  the  statement  made  by 
the  historian  and  that  made  by  the  Governor.  The  variance  is 
great  even,  as  measured  by  words.  —  by  words,  which  change 
their  meanings  with  time  and  use,  and  are  charged  with  more 
or  less  of  meaning  according  to  the  intelligence  of  readers  or 
hearers.  But  far  greater  than  the  difference  between  the  verbal 
statements  is  the  variance  in  the  substance  and  the  matter  of  the 
two  assertions.  What  Governor  Winthrop  so  distinctly  affirms 
about  the  intentions  of  his  company,  taken  for  what  it  signified 
at  the  time  when  it  was  written,  conveys  something  amazingly 
different,  wide  apart,  from  the  idea  which  those  who  read  the  sen 
tence  of  Dr.  Palfrey  would  draw  from  it.  Now,  the  difference  in 
the  substance  and  purport  of  what  goes  respectively  with  those 
two  statements,  to  my  mind,  corresponds  exactly  to  the  erroneous 
writing  and  reading  of  our  early  history,  which  has  dropped  out 
of  recognition  the  real  aims  and  purposes  of  the  founders  of 
Massachusetts,  and  substituted  for  them  other  motives  and  ends, 
avowed  or  secret. 

The  difference  between  the  Governor's  "  place.of  cohabitation 
and  con  sort  ship,  under  a  due  form  of  government,  both  civil  and 
ecclesiastical,"  and  the  historians  "  place  of  refuge  for  civil  and 
religious  freedom,"  is,  one  may  say,  immeasurable  by  com 
parison  or  contrast.  The  purpose  which  the  Governor  recog 
nizes,  positively  and  completely  excluded  every  thing  that  is 
conveyed  to  us  in  the  phrase  used  by  Dr.  Palfrey  and  by  our 
selves.  We  have  civil  and  religious  freedom  in  this  State  now.  r~ 
But  what  we  have  as  such  was  not  in  the  minds  of  the  Fathers. 
They  never  designed  it  or  planned  for  it.  On  the  contrary,  in 
view  of  their  real  intent  and  aim,  the  purpose  Which  mastered 
and  put  ihcm  willingly  and  heroically  to  its  service,  what  is 
civil  and  religious  freedom  to  us,  would  have  been  to  them  a 
dread  and  woe. 

I  might  quote  a  long  and  suggestive  series  of  statements  from 
the  pens  of  the  ablest  writers  in  Massachusetts,  who  have  found 
occasion  to  give  their  own  views  as  to  the  purpose  and  aim  of 

and  prosecute  our  carnal  intentions,  seeking  greate  things  for  ourselves  and  our 
posterity,  the  Lord  will  surely  breake  out  in  wrathe  against  us,  be  revenged  of  such 
a  [sinful]  people,  and  make  us  knowe  the  price  of  the  breache  of  such  a  covenant." 
—  Mass.  Hist.  Collections,  xxvii.  p.  46. 


34  THE   AIMS  AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

the  original  colonists.     My  space  restricts  me  here  within  narrow 
limits. 

Governor  Hutchinson  says, — 

"  It  was  one  great  design  of  the  first  planters  of  the  Massachusetts 

x  colony  to  obtain  for  themselves  and  their  posterity  the  liberty  of  worship- 

j  ping  God  in  such  manner  as  appeared  to  them  to  be  most  agreeable  to 

the  sacred  Scriptures.— Upon  their  removal,  they  supposed  their  relation 

both  to  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  government  of  England,  except  so  far 

as  a  special  reserve  was  made  by  their  charter,  was  at  an  end,  and  that 

they  had  right  to  form  such  new  model  of  both  as  best  pleased  them." 1 

Judge  Story  says, — 

"  The  fundamental  error  of  our  ancestors,  an  error  which  began  with 
the  very  settlement  of  the  colony,  was  a  doctrine  which  has  since  been 
happily  exploded ;  I  mean  the  necessity  of  a  union  between  church  and 
state.  To  this  they  clung  as  to  the  ark  of  their  safety."  2 

This  error  is  what  we  see.  The  colonists  found  in  it  their 
obligation  and  motive. 

Mr.  Quincy  says  the  colonists  did  not  come  here  "  to  acquire 
liberty  for  all  sorts  of  consciences,  but  to  ^vindicate  and  maintain 
the  liberty  of  their  own  consciences.  They  did  not  cross  the 
Atlantic  on  a  crusade  in  behalf  of  the  rights  of  mankind  in 
general,  but  in  support  of  their  own  rights  and  liberties."1  But 
all  depends  upon  the  view  which  the  colonists  had  of  the  extent, 
nature,  and  use  of  "  their  own  rights  and  liberties." 

There  are  those  who  charge  themselves  with  the  responsibility 
of  defending  and  vindicating  the  Fathers  of  Massachusetts,  alike 
against  censures  and  assertions  which  are  perfectly  true,  as  well 
as  against  aspersions  and  slanders  which  are  false  and  malig 
nant.  Their  defence  in  either  case  is  made  difficult,  and  always 
will  be  unsatisfactory  and  insufficient,  unless  we  start  fairly  with 
an  understanding  of  their  real  motive  and  design.  This  may 
prove,  on  the  search,  to  have  been  one  of  such  a  nature,  such 
an  inspiration,  that  they  shall  need  no  vindication  or  apology 
for  having  been  guided  by  it.  It  may  prove  that,  in  the  light 
and  under  the  sway  of  a  supposed  obligation  which  furnished 

1  History,  vol.  i.  pp.  368-9. 

2  Commemoration  of  the  Settlement  of  Salem. 

3  Address  :  Second  Century  of  Boston. 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  35 

them  their  enterprise,  they  will  as  little  need  to  be  relieved  of 
any  censure  for  what  they  did  to  others,  or  to  each  other,  in 
attempting  to  accomplish  it,  as  to  be  condoled  with,  pitied,  or 
wept  over  for  the  stern  sufferings  to  which  they  subjected  them 
selves  in  pursuit  of  their  great  aim. 

The  attempts  which  are  made  to  vindicate  the  Fathers  of 
Massachusetts  —  to  extenuate  their  errors,  to  reduce  or  apologize 
for  their  harsh  spirit  and  their  severe  and,  to  us,  cruel  dealings 
—  do  not  reach  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter ;  they  are  not  suc 
cessful;  they  are  not  consistent  with  truth.  By  some  strange 
oversight,  many  of  their  descendants  have  failed  to  inform  them 
selves  how  they  may  wisely  deal  with  criticisms  and  censures 
visited  upon  an  ancestry  whom  they  feel  bound  to  defend.  On 
no  subject  dealt  with  among  us,  in  lectures,  orations,  sermons, 
poems,  historical  addresses,  and  even  in  our  choice  school  litera 
ture,  has  there  been  such  an  amount  of  crude,  sentimental,  and 
wasteful  rhetoric,  or  so  much  weak  and  vain  pleading,  as  on 
this.  Those  old  forefathers  who  are  thus  patronized,  flattered, 
and  stood  for,  if  they  could  listen  to  or  read  what  is  thus  offered 
in  their  behalf,  would  themselves  repudiate  the  larger  part  of  it. 
They  would  feel  aggrieved  equally,  perhaps,  by  their  champions 
as  by  their  defamers.  The  roof  of  the  whole  error,  common  alike 
to  those  who  censure  and  those  who  defend  those  ancient 
Fathers,  is  in  the  assumption  that  they  came  here  mainly  to  seek, 
establish,  and  enjoy  liberty  of  conscience;  that  this  was  their 
inspiration,  their  motive,  their  aim.  Their  assailants  and  their 
defenders  both  agree,  in  the  main,  in  asserting  or  allowing  this ; 
and  they  are  both  wrong. 

Starting  from  this  assumption,  their  assailants  proceed  to  say, 
that  Th£se  fathers  yqr^  s66h  snowed  tnat  it  was  only  liberty  of 
conscience,  and  that  a  very  peculiar  conscience,  of  their  own,  which 
they  sought  for,  —  liberty  to  indulge  their  own  notions  and 
intolerant  spirit;  that  they  at  once  became  the  relentless  per 
secutors  of  every  opinion  and  belief  varying  from  their  own,  and 
stopped  at  no  severity  or  cruelty  in  repressing  and  punishing 
every  form  of  dissent;  imprisoning,  banishing,  whipping,  fining, 
mutilating,  and  hanging  all  who  questioned  their  ways.  They 
did  all  these  harsh  and  cruel  things.  They  were  deadly  enemies 
of  every  form  of  what  they  called  heresy;  and  some  free- 


36  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

thinking,  if  they  could  have  reached  it,  they  would  have  regarded 
as  punishable  as  some  free-speaking.  They  restricted  the  right 
&f  citizenship,  in  the  franchise,  —  the  right  of  choosing  and  of 
being  chosen  to  office,  —  to  those  who  had  accepted  their  reli 
gious  covenant  and  become  church-members.  They  not  only 
punished  strangers  and  interlopers  coming  into  their  jurisdiction 
whose  ways  and  opinions  offended  them ;  but  they  also  pro 
ceeded,  almost  to  the  last  penalties  of  their  rigid  code,  against 
a  succession  of  men  and  women  in  their  own  religious  fellow 
ship,  who  raised  strife  or  dissent.  They  even  fettered  themselves 
by  disabling  covenants  and  compacts,  and  bound  themselves  in 
severe  subjection  to  tests  and  obligations  of  the  sternest  sort; 
willingly  renouncing  a  large  measure  of  that  liberty  which  we 
so  naturally  exercise. 

These,  certainly,  were  strange  doings  for  men  and  women 
professing  liberty  of  conscience,  self-exiled  for  the  purpose,  of 
providing  a  safe  harborage  for  it.  If  they  did  all  these  things 
by  a  rule  of  their  own  opinionativenessy  measured  by  a  standard 
of  their  own  devising,  with  no  appeal,  outside  of  themselves,  to 
an  authority  held  by  them  as  equally  supreme  for  their  own 
guidance  and  that  of  all  others,  —  their  course  would  indeed 
present  the  most  marvellous  phenomenon  in  history.  If  they 
had  intended  to  afford  such  an  asylum,  and  had  in  writing  or  in 
spoken  word  avowed  it,  one  would  have  thought  that  the  first 
instance  in  which  they  violated  or  impaired  it,  would  have 
opened  their  eyes  to  the  marked  and  glaring  inconsistency  of 
their  course.  At  any  rate,  how  easy  would  it  have  been  for  the 
first  victim  of  their  intolerance  to  have  quoted  their  own  pro 
fessions  against  them! — an  opportunity  never  availed  of  from 
first  to  last  by  any  one  of  their  victims,  for  the  very  excellent 
reason,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  that  the  founders  of  Massachusetts 
had  made  no  such  professions,  but  were  consecrated  to  an  enter 
prise  so  pledged  and  constrained  in  itself  that  it  would  not  have 
admitted  of  any  laxness. 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  the  founders  of  Massachusetts  never 
professed  or  promised  any  thing  that  is  implied  to  us  in  the 
phrase  "  liberty  of  conscience."  After  having  read  every  thing 
that  I  know  of  as  extant  in  print,  or  manuscript,  from  the  pens 
of  those  exiles,  I  feel  justified  in  stating  positively  that  they  did 


FOUNDERS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  37 

not  come  here  to  seek,  nor  even  to  indulge  themselves  in, 
"  liberty  of  conscience,"  —  in  any  thing  like  the  meaning  which 
that  phrase  has  to  us.'  We  mislead  ourselves  when  we  assert  or 
allow  that  they  recognized  any  thing  of  the  sort.  Not  a  single 
sentence  can  be  quoted  from  any  one  of  them  committing  them 
to  it.  You  may  find  the  words,  the  phrase,  in  their  writings, 
often  repeated  and  very  emphatic ;  but  when  it  is  used  to  express 
any  thing  of  what  we  mean  by  it,  that  thing  is  sternly  repudi 
ated  ;  and  when  the  phrase  is  a  part  of  their  own  vernacular,  it 
covers  something  which  is  only  a  part  of  a  much  larger  whole, 
and  which  defined  rather  a  limitation,  a  subjection,  than  an 
enfranchisement,  of  natural  liberty.  We  must  not  put  our 
meaning  into  their  phrase,  but  their  meaning. 

It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  avert  here  the  suggestion  of  a 
quibble  or  a  cavil,  to  the  effect  that  these  self-exiled  colonists 
were  still  exercising  that  same  free  will  and  private  judgment,  alike 
in  what  they  renounced  and  in  what  they  accepted  and  pledged 
themselves  to  believe  and  do,  —  which  practically  defines  liberty 
of  conscience.  \  The  subject  of  a  Jesuit  novitiate  may  exercise 
that  "  liberty  "  irPputting  himself  under  a  rule  which  henceforth 
binds  him  to  torego  it.  Xi£u as  *  smm  attempt  io  show,  "the 
Fathers  of  Massachusetts  felt,  avowed,  and  put  themselves  under 
the  sway  of,  an  Obligation  to  an  external  rule,  which  overbore 
henceforward  the  exercise  of  any  natural  freedom  for  changing 
or  qualifying  their  allegiance  and  subjection  to  it,  then  it  would 
seem  that  we  should  bring  them  before  us  rather  as  the  awed 
and.  pledged  subjects  of  a  yoke  to  which  they  had  submitted 
themselves,  than  as  free  rovers  not  as  yet  persuaded  to  what 
th^yjshould  commit  themselves,  if  to  any  thing  or  to  anybody. 
They  certainly  were  not  "  fancy-free." 

Kvery  conception  which  those  men  had  of  liberty,  civil  or 
religious,  was  of  something  subjected  to  the  sway  and  restraint 
of  law,  —  a  qualified,  dependent,  conditioned,  and  reduced 
freedom.  Liberty  under  law  was  their  inotlo,  and  it  depended 
upon  the  nature  and  the  quality  of  the  law  to  decide  the  nature 
and  the  quality  of  the  liberty.  In  any  province  or  exercise  of 
liberty,  they  recognized,  Wwning  or  presiding  over  it,  some 
symbol  or  dispensation  of  authority. 

In  a  great  controversy  rising  here  in  the  Court  from  a  small 


38  THE   AIMS    AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

occasion,  in  1645,  and  leading  to  what  is  called  "  the  impeach 
ment  "  of  Winthrop,  then  Deputy  Governor,  he  made  an 
admirable  speech,  in  which  we  find  him  giving  his  idea  of 
liberty  as  follows  :  — 

"  For  the  other  point  concerning  liberty,  I  observe  a  great  mistake  in 
the  country  about  that.  There  is  a  twofold  liberty,  —  natural  ^1  mean  as 
our  naturel¥~n6"^coTnipTy'Tn^avil'or  federal.  The  first  is  common  to 
man  with  beasts  and  other  creatures.  Bythis,  man,  as  he  stands  in 
relation  to  man  simply,  hath  liberty  to  do  what  he  lists  ;  it  is  a  liberty  to 
evil  as  well  as  to  good.  This  liberty  is  incompatible  and  inconsistent 
with  authority.  The  exercise  and  maintaining  of  this  liberty  makes  men 
grow  more  evil,  and  in  time  to  be  worse  than  brute  beasts :  omnes  sumiis 
licentid  deteriores.  This  is  that  great  enemy  of  truth  and  peace,  that 
wild  beast,  which  all  the  ordinances  of  God  are  bent  against  to  restrain 
and  subdue  it.  The  other  kind  of  liberty  I  call  civil  or  federal ;  it  may 
also  be  termed  moral,  in  relerence  Ib~fLe  covenant  between"  GocPand 
man,  in  the  moral  law.  and  the  politic  covenants  and  constitutions  amongst 
men  themselves.  This  liberty  is  the  proper  end  and  object  of  authority, 
and  cannot  subsist  without  it;  and  it  is  a  liberty  to  that  only  which  is 
good,  justjand  honest.  This  liberty  you  are  to  stand  for,  with  the  hazard 
not  only  of  yoTiir~goods,  but  of  your  lives,  if  need  be.  Whatsoever 
crosseth  this  is  not  authority,  but  a  distemper  thereof.^  This  liberty  is 
maintained  and  exercised  in  a  way  of  subjection  to  authority;  it  is  of  the 
same  kind  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free."  l 

De  Tocqueville,  in  his  "  Democracy  in  America,"2  quotes  the 
above,  and  describes  it  as  a  "  fine  definition  of  liberty." 

Of  liberty  of  conscience,  either  as  an  abstraction  or  as  an  abso 
lute  right,  they  with  whom  we  are  dealing  had  no  conception, 
as  of  a  good  thing.  Certainly,  they  had  no  respect  for  it,  .no 
confidence  in  it.  They  would  have  dreaded  it  beyond  our 
power  in  these  days  to  imagine.  They  had  begun  to  see  around 
them,  in  their  native  England,  the  threatenings  of  some  of  the 
effects  and  results  of  just  what  we  mean  by  liberty  of  conscience, 
and  they  shuddered  at  them.  Their  dread  of  those  consequences 
was  one  'of  the  satisfactions  which  they  afterwards  found  in 
their  exile.  \  It  would  be  much  nearer  to  the  truth,  —  indeed,  it 
is  the  truth  itself,  —  and  it  would  be  truer  to  all  the  facts  of  the 
case,  to  the  integrity  of  history,  and  to  the  right  use  of  terms 

1  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  ii.  pp.  340,  341. 

2  Bowen's  ed.,  vol.  i.  p.  52. 


FOUNDERS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  COLONY.  39 

which  get  changed  in  their  import  and  burden,  to  say,  frankly 
and  boldly,  that  our  Fathers  came  here  to  get  away  from,  to  get 
rid  of,  each  liberty  of  conscience,  as  to  them  a  hateful,  pernicious. 

and  ruinous  tiling,  sure  to  result  in  impiety  and  anarchy.  They 
did  noF~cIaim  it  for :"  themselves,  except  under  a  restriction  and 
limitation,  soon  to  be  denned,  which  would  render  the  claim 
almost  nugatory  in  our  view  of  it.  They  would  have  shuddered 
at  indulging  themselves  in  what  is  now  known  as  such  liberty. 
To  have  expected  them  to  approve  of  it  in  others,  and  to  provide 
for  it,  would  be  an  absurdity.  It  was  the  one  horrid,  dreaded 
bugbear  of  their  fancies,  —  the  one  proscribed  iniquity  of  their 
religion.  A  conscience  free,  in  our  loose  sense  of  the  word, 
would  have  been  to  them  far  worse  than  no  conscience  at  all. 

Attracted  as  I  was,  years  ago,  to  the  study  of  their  enterprise, 
as  one  of  the  most  striking  episodes  in  the  world's  annals,  con 
sidering  what  great  and  marvellously  prospered  issues  have 
come  from  it,  I  soon  learned,  that  the  fulsome  panegyrics  and 
the  sentimental  rhetoric  spent  upon  those  stern  old  Fathers, 
were  worse  than  wasted ;  that  the  superficial  way  in  which  their 
history  has  been  read  and  referred  to,  was  introducing  misrepre 
sentation  and  misunderstanding ;  and  that  they  had  become  the 
subjects  of  false  praise  and  of  unjust  censure,  the  joint  product 
of  which  had  come  to  be  visited  upon  them  in  the  form  of  a 
facile  and  flippant  ridicule.  No  one  among  the  living  genera 
tion  here,  native  or  alien,  is  called  upon  to  undertake  their 
championship  in  terms  which  will  vindicate  their  superstitions 
or  their  severities,  or  which  will  cover  an  approbation  of  the 
fundamental  principles  assumed  or  adopted  by  them.  They 
are,  however,  justly  entitled  to  be  set  forth  in  the  light  of  their 
own  age,  under  the  guidance  of  their  own  sincere  convictions, 
and  with  an  intelligent,  truthful  recognition  of  their  master- 
motive,  which  was  as  lofty  a  one  as  has  ever  engaged  sages, 
philanthropists,  or  saints  in  any  earthly  enterprise.  It  is  painful 
to  any  one  who,  inheriting  their  blood  and  sharing  the  blessings 
of  their  sufferings  and  labors,  is  also  versed  in  their  history,  to 
hear  them  either  falsely  praised  or  unfairly  criticised,  ridiculed, 
and  maligned.  In  the  mixtures  of  populations  in  our  northern 
cities,  and  in  the  spirit  of  religious  partisanship  which  is  rife 
among  us,  those  who  are  very  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  the 


40  THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OF  THE 

freedom  and  thrift  of  our  Puritan  heritage,  often  allow  them 
selves  to  speak  contemptuously  and  derisively  of  the  original 
colonists.  What  has  come  of  their  enterprise  and  institutions, 
is  found  to  be  desirable  by  all  who  share  in  it ;  but  not  only 
gratitude,  truth  itself,  is  often  forgotten  in  the  enjoyment  of  the 
inheritance. _  The  story  of  the  intolerance  of  the  colonists  is 
curtly  told  in  epigrams  and  stinging  jests.  Their  grim  and 
morose  manners,  their  superstitions,  austerities,  and  cruel  enact 
ments  are  enlarged  upon.  Some  of  their  lineal  progeny  give 
them  over  to  travesties  and  railleries  of  light  and  bitter  tongues. 

Any  thing  that  could  be  viewed  as  a  defence  or  vindication 
of  them ;  any  thing,  even,  which,  falling  short  of  that,  would 
claim  for  them  an  average  measure  of  intelligence  and  common 
sense,  — must  be  given  over,  if  it  takes  in  the  fancy  that  these  old 
Fathers  had  main  regard  for  what  we  mean  by  liberty  of  con 
science,  or  by  civil  freedom. 

Read  their  history  searchingly,  penetrate  to  the  motives  and 
convictions  of  the  men  and  women  themselves,  and  the  truth 
will  reveal  itself  to  you,  that  never  was  there  in  this  world  a  com 
pany  of  persons  who,  individually  and  in  their  joint  fellowship, 
held  their  consciences  as  subject  to  a  more  constraining  obligation 
than  they  did  theirs.  I  never  find  any  one  of  their  pleas  or 
avowals  alleging  a  claim  to,  or  an  exercise  of,  liberty  of  con 
science,  which  fails  to  qualify  it  by  a  recognition  of  their  subjec 
tion  to  a  Scripture  rule,  in  indulging  themselves  in  that  liberty. 
Thus,  in  the  Humble  Petition  and  Address  of  the  General  Court 
to  Charles  II.,  in  1660-1,  Endicot  t  bring  governor,  they  say :  "  Our 
liberty  to  walk  in  the  faith  of  the  Gospel,  with  all  good  conscience, 
according  to  the  order  of  the  Gospel,  was  the  cause  of  our  trans 
porting  ourselves,"  &c. 

A  rule,  or  mastrry,  which  they  accepted  over  their  consciences, 
became  to  thrin,  in  fact,  a  substitute  for  conscience.  You  must 
look  behind,  deeply  below,  this  pretence  of  freedom  of  conscience, 
in  the  ordinary  use  of  the  phrase,  for  the  influence,  the  sway,  the 
conviction,  the  purpose,  aye,  the  inspiration,  which  moved  them. 
They  were  the  last  men  in  the  world  to  trust  to  a  natural  con- 
ao.jp.nr.p..  Thp.y  wfirg  a  covenanted  people!  Xhe  Puritan  Bible 
was  the  Lord  of  their  consciences  ;  and  they  put  themselves  under 
the  most  implicit  and  unlimited  subjection  to  what  they  owned 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  41 

as  its  just  authority  over  them.]  \True,  it  may  be  said  they  fol 
lowed  their  individual  consciences,  and  allowed  them  exercise  in 
approving  and  putting  themselves  under  a  rule,  which,  for  them, 
represented  a  supreme  authority.  But,  in  so  doing,  they  under 
stood  that  they  parted  with  what  others,  "  uncovenanted,"  might 
regard  as  their  liberty.  t  Their  Bible  training  had  preoccupied  and 
restricted  their  freedom^ Their  ^opinions,  their  motives,  their 
actions,  their  laws,  their  institutions,  were  all  restrained  —  we 
should  say,  hampered —  by  their  religious  belief,  reducing  their 
natural  freedom  within  rigid  limitations.  We  may  in  these  days 
of  ours  question  the  reasonableness  of  that  belief  of  theirs;  and 
we  may  deny  that  the  Bible  has  the  kind  and  degree  of  authority 
over  the  natural  conscience  which  they  assigned  to  it.  But  these 
are  our  opinions,  not  theirs ;  and  in  order  to  see  and  know  them, 
we  must  get  into  their  atmosphere.  The  fact  is,  that  a  con 
science  in  subjection  to  a  severe  rule,  and  not  a  frae  conscience, 
guided  them.  So  little  did  they  think  of  what  they  might  do, 
If  tHey^TnduIged  their  own  notions  and  speculations,  that  their 
whole  earnestness  of  purpose  was  concentrated  in  putting  them 
selves  under  a  disabling  restriction  of  their  own  wills  and  wishes. 
The  free  exercise  of  their  individual  consciences  would  have 
divided  them  in  opinion,  and  prevented  any  harmony  of  action. 
Only" as  they  consented  to  forego  individualism  in  speculation 
and  I>elief7 through  a  common  conscientiousness  subjecting  them 
to  the  rule  of  the  Bible,  could  they  walk  and  act  together?)  • 

I  will  endeavor  to  state,  in  a  plain  way,  the  simple  and 
authentic  truth,  which  will  furnish  the  key  to  the  motives  and 
intent  of  the  colonists. 


Certain  proprietary  rights  and  privileges  on  land  and  water, 
in  a  region  defined  as  Massachusetts  Bay,  had  been  secured  by 
royal  charter  to  a  trading  company  of  adventurers  in  England. 
Twenty  patentees  were  named  as  constituting  that  company ; 
viz.,  a  governor,  a  deputy  governor,  and  eighteen  assistants,  — 
seven  beside  the  governor  and  deputy  governor  being  a  quorum 
for  business.  The  company,  by  its  charter,  could  make  as  many 
more  persons  free  of  it,  freemen,  so  called,  —  that  is,  members  or 
partners,  voters,  proprietors, —  as  they  pleased,  and  on  such 
terms,  conditions,  and  qualifications  as  they  pleased.  The  com 
pany  had  absolute  jurisdiction  over  its  territory;  and  the  charter 


42  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

gave  it  full  powers  of  legislation  and  administration,  subject  only 
to  accordance  wiili  the  laws  of  England.  The  charter  provisions 
for  this  power  and  these  rights  are  explicit,  full,  and  emphatic. 
To  the  company  was  jjiven  "full  and  absolute  power  and  autho 
rity,  to  correct,  punish,  pardon,  and  rule"  all  English  subjects 
that  should  at  any  time  adventure  to,  or  inhabit  within,  the  pre 
cincts  of  its  jurisdiction;  and,  "for  their  special  defence  and 
safety,  to  encounter,  expulse,  repel,  and  resist  by  forced-arms, 
as  well  by  sea  as  by  land,  and  by  all  fitting  ways  and  means 
whatsoever,  all  such  person  and  persons,  as  shall  at  any  time 
hereafter  attempt  or  enterprise  the  destruction,  invasion,  detri 
ment,  or  annoyance  to  the  said  plantation  or  inhabitants." 

Here,  certainly,  was  a  large  franchise,  with  broad  privileges 
and  well-fortified  rights.  Yet  nothing  short  of  all  this  would 
have  secured  the  enlistment  of  able  and  well-disposed  men 
in  an  enterprise  that  stood  out  alone  hopefully  among  many 
similar  enterprises  in  those  days  which  had  disastrously  failed. 
The  company  needed  all  that  the  charter  pledged  to  it  by 
the  royal  seal :  the  right  of  self-administration ;  of  deciding  and 
imposing  the  terms  on  which  it  would  admit  free  associates, 
who  might  advance  or  ruin  its  schemes;  legal  rights  over  its 
jurisdiction;  and  power  to  punish,  expel,  and  thwart  the  designs 
of  all  who  might  threaten  or  practise  harm  or  annoyance  to  it. 

Certainly  the  question  may  be  raised,  and  a  very  vigorous  and 
equdl-handed 'ttiscnssion  may  be  maintained  upon  it,  whether  the 
three  provisions  in  their  charter,  on  which  they  insisted  so 
strenuously,  and  with  their  own  self-favoring:  ^ntcrpretati on  of 
1hem,-^the  absolute  jurisdiction  of  the  soil/2he  authority  to 
deli ne  their  own  terms  for  admitting  freemennjand  the  right  to 
drive  out  those  whose  presence  troubled  them,  —  allowed  of  the 
strained  use  and  application  to  which  the  proprietors  applied 
them.  It  is  to  my  purpose,  however,  only  to  accept  the  fact,  that 
the  authorities  did  so  interpret  those  provisions,  and  did.  in  tin- 
open  face  of  day,  act  upon  such  interpretations.  This  they  did, 
not  only  in  their  secret  confidences  with  each  other,  but  equally 
in  public  avowals.  They  could  not  expect  to  make  a  secret  of 
their  pretensions,  not  even  of  their  bold  denial  of  a  right  of  appeal 
from  them  to  English  courts ;  for  there  was  almost  a  worn  track 
and  highway  on  land  and  sea,  between  the  Massachusetts  court 


FOUNDERS   OP   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.         •  43 

and  those  courts,  made  by  complainants.  Indeed,  even  to  the 
last  death-struggle  of  the  authorities  to  retain  their  charter 
against  commissioners  and  against  Charles  II.,  they  stood 
stoutly  to  their  first  construction  of  it. 

It  was  probably  intended  and  expected,  though  not  a  word 
was  covenanted  or  intimated  to  that  effect,  that  the  company 
and  its  charter  should  remain  and  be  administered  in  England; 
vessels  and  servants  being  sent  hither  to  fish  and  trade.  As  to  the 
legality  of  its  transfer  by  charter  and  local  government  to  this 
spot,  it  is  not  within  the  scope  of  my  lecture  to  argue  or  pro 
nounce.  Nor  is  any  discussion  of  that  matter  needful  here  and 
now.  For,  as  we  have  seen  what  powers  of  local  jurisdiction 
the  charter  assured  to  the  company,  it  would  seem  that  its  offi 
cers  might  have  done,  through  their  resident  agents  here,  sub 
stantially  what,  and  all  that,  they  did  when  they  were  established 
in  their  jurisdiction.  They  could  make  laws  for  all  who  were 
living  here  ;  they  could  admit  or  reject  at  their  pleasure,  and  on 
their  own  terms,  any  who  sought  to  vote  in  their  affairs  ;  and 
they  could  warn  off  and  drive  out  intruders.  Had 


and  administration  never  been  transferred,  the  company  would 
still  have  had  rule  here. 

A  merely  mercenary  spirit,  bent  on  pecuniary  gains,  had,  in 
the  main,  guided  the  company  in  its  origin,  as  it  had  similar 
patentees  corporated  by  prior  grants  and  charters.  But  there 
were  in  its  membership  men  strongly  swayed  and  leadened  by 
Puritanism;  and  the  extraordinary  excitement,  the  religious 
fervor,  and  the  civil  and  political  agitations  of  the  crisis  in  Eng 
land,  —  fast  working  towards  civil  wat  and  revolution,  —  in 
creased  and  strengthened  that  influence.  While  Endicott  at 
Salem,  with  a  body  of  associates  and  servants,  was  acting  as 
local  governor  and  agent  of  the  company,  and  receiving  his  in 
structions  from  the  charter  administration  in  England,  we  find 
the  following  entry  on  the  original  records,  —  of  matter  of  busi 
ness,  as  the  company  was  assembled  in  its  General  Court,  at  the 
house  of  its  deputy  governor,  Thomas  Goff,  in  London,  July  28, 
1629:  — 

"  Mr.  Governor  (Cradock)  read  certain  propositions  conceived  by  him 
self;  viz.,  that  for  the  advancement  of  the  plantation,  the  inducing  and 
encouraging  persons  of  worth  and  quality  to  transport  themselves  and 

2 


44  «  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OP   THE 

families  thither,  and  for  other  weighty  reasons  therein  contained,  to 
transfer  the  government  of  the  plantation  to  those  that  shall  inhabit 
there,  and  not  to  continue  the  same  in  subordination  to  the  company  here, 
as  now  it  is.  This  business  occasioned  some  debate :  but  by  reason  of  the 
many  great  and  considerable  consequences  thereupon  depending,  it  was 
not  now  resolved  upon;  but  those  present  are  desired  privately  and 
seriously  to  consider  hereof,  and  to  set  down  their  particular  reasons  in 
writing  pro  and  contra,  and  to  produce  the  same  at  the  next  General  Court ; 
wherr,  they  being  reduced  to  heads,  and  maturely  considered  of,  the  com 
pany  may  then  proceed  to  a  final  resolution  thereon  ;  and  in  the  mean  time 
they  are  desired  to  carry  this  business  secretly,  that  the  same  be  not 
divulged?*""" 

For  any  thing  we  know  to  the  contrary,  this  significant  prop 
osition,  as  well  as  the  purpose  which  it  proposed,  may  have 
originated  in  the  mind  of  Governor  Cradock.  -.That  it  does  not 
appear  to  have  surprised  or  at  all  displeased  some  of  those,  at 
least,  who  heard  it  as  "  conceived  by  himself,"  would  indicate 
that  preparation  had  been  made  for  its  bold  utterance,  and  for 
its  entry  upon  the  records,  by  previous  suggestion  and  consulta 
tion.  At  any  rate,  the  purpose  of  transferring  the  charter  and 
government  was  not  of  a  sort  to  have  been  born  full-shaped  for 
the  occasion  of  its  public  utterance,  on  the  spur  of  a  moment. 
The  matter  was  made  the  especial  business  of  the  Court  at  a 
meeting  a  month  afterwards ;  the  point  under  consideration 
*being,  "  to  give  answer  to  divers  gentlemen  intending  to  go  into 
New  England,  whether  or  no  the  chief  government  of  the  plan 
tation,  together  with  the  patent,  should  be  settled  in  New  Eng 
land  or  here."  Committees  were  appointed  representing  both 
alternatives,  with  liberty  to  get  advice  and  opinions  from  others 
not  belonging  to  the  company  ;  and  they  were  to  prepare  their 
respective  arguments,  from  whieji  a  report  might  be  digested  for 
the  General  Court  the  next  day .\jThe  deliberateness  of  the  method, 
and  yet  the  short  time  allowed  for  the  decision,  is  another  indica 
tion  of  much  previous  conference.  The  decision  was  made  on 
the  next  day,  August  29,  when,  after  a  hearing  of  reasons  on 
both  sides,  and  a  long  debate,  the  question  was  called  for, 
whether  the  patent  and  the  government  be  transferred,  "so  as  it 
may  Jjg  done  legally."  .By  erection  of  hands,  it  appeared  by 
the  general  consent  of  the  company,  that  the  transfer  should  be 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  45 

made  ;  "  and  accordingly  an  order  to  be  drawn  up."  At  the  Court 
held  on  September  29,  following,  the  orders  above  agreed  upon 
having  been  read,  further  decisive  action  was  deferred,  on  account 
of  the  absence  of  some  of  the  leading  assistants,  who  had  been 
at  the  previous  meetings.  But  in  the  mean  while  some  prelimi 
nary  measures  were  provided  for,  especially  "  to  take  advice  jjf 
learned  council,  whether  the  same  may  be  legally  done  or  no." 

At  the_meeting^of  the.  General  Court,  October  15,  —  at  which, 
significantly,  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  and  some  others  of  like  spirit j_ 
appear  for  the  first  time,  —  the  transfer,  and  arrangements  inci- 
dental  to  it,  were  lully  decided.  On  the  2Uth  of  the  same  month, 
a  General  Court  was  held,  for  the  purpose  of  choosing  new  officers 
of  the  company,  with  reference  to  the  enterprise  agreed  upon,  as 
neither  the  governor  nor  the  deputy  intended  to  go  over  at  that 
time.  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  "  both  for  his  integrity  and  sufficiency," 
\yas  chosen  governor,  and  Mr.  John  Humphrey  deputy  ;  but  as  the 
latter,  when  the  time  for  embarkation  came,  was  to  stay  behind, 
Thomas  Dudley  was  put  in  his  place.  One  other  entry  on  the 
records  must  be  copied  here.  At  the  Court  on  November  25, — 

"  Upon  the  motion  of  Mr.  White,  to  the  end  that  this  business  might 
be  proceeded  in  with  the  first  intention,  which  was  chiefly  the  glory  of 
God ;  and  to  that  purpose,  that  their  meetings  might  be  sanctified  by  the 
prayers  of  some  faithful  ministers,  resident  here  in  London,  whose  advice 
would  be  likewise  requisite  upon  many  occasions,  —  the  court  thought  fit  to 
admit  into  the  freedom  of  this  company  Mr.  Jo:  Archer  and  Mr.  Philip 
Nye,  ministers  here  in  London,  who  being  here  present  kindly  accepted 
thereof.  Also  Mr.  White  did  recommend  unto  them  Mr.  Nathaniel 
Ward,  of  Standon."  1 

This  last  extract  must  convey  to  us  all  that  it  reports,  all  that 

it  suggests,  and  a  great  deal  more  also.     It  gives  us  explicitly  a 

fragment  from  a  history  which  we  have  the  means  of  setting  into 

a  more  full  narration.     A  change  had  evidently  passed  upon  the 

JVIassachusetts    Company,' — a  change    in    purpose,  aim,  and 

^membership.     So  far  as  its  business  proceedings  had  now  come 

to  embrace  a  prayer  meeting,  the  token  is  a  reminder  of  much 

beside.    Some  of  the  preparatory  agencies  which  wrought  to  the 

result  may  be  indicated.     When  Deputy  Governor  Dudley  had 

1  Court  Records,  vol.  i.  pp.  49-63. 


46  THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OF  THE 

got  a  rude  cottage  for  himself  here,  less  than  a  year  after  his  arri 
val,  he  addressed  a  letter,  of  singular  interest  and  pathos,  to  the 
Countess  of  Lincoln,  the  mother  of  the  wife  of  Isaac  Johnson, 
his  associate.  In  this  letter  he  says,  — 

"  Touching  the  plantation  which  we  have  here  begun,  it  fell  out  thus. 
AboutTTKe'yeai'  1027,  SoTrie  friends,  being  together  in  Lincolnshire,  fell  into 
discourse  about  New  England,  and  the  planting  of  the  Gospel  there  ;  and, 
after  some  deliberation,  we  imparted  our  reasons,  by  letters  and  messages 
to  some  in  London  and  the  west  country  ;  where  it  was  likewise  deliber 
ately  thought  upon,  and  at  length,  with  often  negotiation,  so  ripened,"  &c., 

as  to  result  m  the  procuring  of  the  royal  charter,  and  in  the 
plantation.  These  "  Boston  men/*  BO  called,  reinforced  the  funds 
of  the  company.  It  was  the  coming  in  of  the  religious^  spirit 
into  the  business  plans,  by  thejnew  membership  o^fjbhe  company, 
which  alone  induced  the  transfer  of  the  charter  and  the  govern 
ment.  In  the  little  treatise  of  Winthrop,  written  on  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  already  quoted,  he  says,  "  We  are  a  company  professing 
ourselves  fellow-members  of  Christ."  Snm^  linfrfl  **"*  J7*.h« 
chain  which  connecteXl  the  trading  company  with  the  religious 
colony,  were  wanting,  until  the  recent  discovery  of  a  large  mass 
of  the  papers  of  Governor  Winthrop  revealed  to  us  certain  night 
rides,  secret  consultations,  and  deliberate  negotiations,  weighing 
of  arguments  and  devotional  exercises,  which  brought  him  into 
membership  of  the  company,  committed  him  to  its  bold  and 
consecrated  enterprise,  and  led  to  his  choice,  as  its  all  sufficient 
leader. 

Nearly  at  the  same  time  on  which  the  valuable  mass  of 
"  Winthrop  Papers  "  came  to  light  in  New  London,  Conn.,  con 
taining,  among  others,  the  governor's  autograph  copy  of  that 
significant  document  called  "  General  Considerations  for  the 
Plantation  in  New  England,"  &c.,  John  Forster.  Esq.,  published 
in  London  a  biography  of  that  noble  patriot  Sir  John  Eliot 
The  Hon.  R.  C.  Winthrop  having  published  the  above  named 
document  in  the  "  Life  and  Letters "  of  his  ancestor,  with  the 
reasons  for  assigning  the  authorship  to  him,  had  shortly  after 
wards  noticed  an  allusion  by  Mr.  Forster,  to  a  paper  found  among 
Eliot's,  alluding  to  New-England  colonization.  The  Earl  of  St. 
Germans,  a  descendant  of  Eliot,  on  being  applied  to  by  Mr. 
Winthrop,  kindly  sent  to  our  Society  a  transcript  of  the  paper, 


FOUNDERS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  COLONY.  47 

which  proved  to  be  a  copy,  with  some  variations,  of  the  "  Con 
siderations."  It  was  made  by  Eliot  himself,  in  the  Tower,  to  be 
sent  to  his  illustrious  compeer,  John  Hampden.  We  have  now 
four  copies  of  that  important  document  which  did  such  service 
of.  a  religious  sort  in  our  enterprise.1 

.The  enterprise  was  eminently  one  which  was  originated,  con- 
trollecfr  and  guided  by  a  leadership.  It  had  favorers,  coadj  utors, 
subordinates,  sympathizers,  and  servants ;  but  its  aim,  its  quick 
ening  motive,  and  its  inspiration,  came  from  a  very  small 
number,  perhaps  from  only  half  a  score  of  persons,  —  its  master 
spirits.  These  devised  and  purposed;  they  bore  the  sacrifices  and 
renewed  the  pledges  of  self-consecration  under  dark  and  discour 
aging  aspects.  They  furnished  in  council  the  practical  wisdom 
adapted  to  the  development  of  the  scheme,  and  its  only  security 
in  emergencies.  They  were  men  who  could  confide  in  each 
other. 

I  feel  justified  in  adopting  Winthrop  as  my  chief  authority 
and  guide  in  interpreting  the  motives  of  his  associates  for  whom 
he  speaks,  as  well  as  for  his  own.  The  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  the 
company  in  England  was  marked  by  his  coming  into  it,  and  his 
coming  in  brought  in  a  religious  intensity  in  its  purposes.  He 
was  himself  at  the  time  under  deep  religious  impressions.  The 
colony  for  the  twenty  remaining  years  of  his  life  was  more  in 
fluenced  by  him  than  by  any  other  person,  alike  in  its  civil  and 
religious  administration,  —  not  excepting  even  Cotton.  ,We 
have  more  full  and  frank  disclosures  and  avowals  from  his 
pen,  than  from  all  others  of  his  associates.  These  are  cogent 
reasons  for  implicit  trust  in  him. 

It  was  the  working  of  the  religious  leaven  in  the  company 
which  ensured .the_end of  colonizing  by  the  transfer  of  the  gov- 
ernment.  Such  members  of  the  company  as  had  no  heart  or 
zeal  for  the  work,  dropped  out  of  it ;  and  new  members  were,  for 
its  new  consecration,  drawn  into  it.  Friends  and  well-wishers 
in  the  kingdom,  not  belonging  to  it,  nor  intending  to  join  it, 
made  generous  and  valuable  gifts  to  it,  because  of  its  new 
designs. 

The  counsellor  of  the  company,  Mr.  White,  who  had  procured 

1  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  1864-5,  pp.  413,  &c. 


48  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

the  drafting  of  its  charter,  and  by  whose  calculation  or  foresight 
it  may  perhaps  have  been  contrived,  tnat  neither  London  nor 
any  other  place  was  specified  for  its  local  administration,  had 
certified  to  the  legality  of  its  transfer.  Had  the  intent  been 
known  by  the  English  authorities,  —  we  are  not  certain  that  it  was 
not  known,  —  the  transfer  would  perhaps  have  been  prevented. 
Had  those  authorities  been  privileged  with  a  prevision  of  what 
was  to  come  from  establishing  the  charter  here,  they  certainly 
would  have  retained  it  in  England ;  in  fact  would  never  have 
allowed  it  to  have  passed  the  seals. 

Coincidently  with  the  departure  of  the  colonists,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
White,  of  Dorchester,  the  chief  prompter  of  the  enterprise,  pub 
lished  his  "  Planters'  Plea,"  in  explanation  and  justification  of  ty. 
In  this,  he  says,  — 

"  I  should  be  very  unwilling  to  hide  any  thing  I  think  might  be  fit,  to 
discover  the  uttermost  of  the  intentions  of  our  planters  in  their  voyage 
to  New  England  ;  and  therefore  shall  make  bold  to  manifest,  not  only  what 
I  know,  but  what  I  guess,  concerning  their  purpose.  As  it  were  absurd 
to  conceive  they  have  all  one  mind,  so  were  it  more  ridiculous  to  imagine 
they  h'ave  all  one  scope.  Necessity  may  press  some ;  novelty,  draw  on 
others  ;  hopes  of  gain  in  time  to  come  may  prevail  with  a  third  sort:  but 
that  the  most,  and  most  sincere  and  godly  part,  have  the  advancement  of 
the  Gospel  for  their  main  scope,  I  am  confident.  That  of  them  some  may 
entertain  hope  and  confidence  of  enjoying  greater  liberty  there  than  here 
in  the  use  of  some  orders  and  ceremonies  of  our  church,  it  seems  very 
probable." 

The  chosen  leader  of  the  enterprise  was  a  providential  man ; 
and  from  that  hour  till  his  death,  twenty  years  after,  he  was  its 
hero  and  its  saint.  The  members  of  that  transported  trading 
company,  represented  by  its  officers,  its  freemen,  and  their  ser 
vants,  present  themselves  on  this"  side  of  the  groaf  dreary  ocean, 
as  a  band  of  religious  exiles.  They  appear  in,  they  assume,  that 
character,  at  once.  As  such  they  prayed  together  under  a  huge 
forest  tree,  and  recognized  the  consecration  of  their  enterprise. 

And  what  was  it  ?  Now,  in  place  of  that  silly  fancy  that  they 
were  seeking  to  provide  a  refuge  for  freedom  of  conscience,  let 
us  substitute  their  real  inspiration  and  aim.  Liberty  of  con 
science,  in  our  full  sense  of  the  phrase,  was  preparing  to  assert 
and  exercise  itself  in  England,  at  the  time  of  their  exile ;  and  it 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  49 

was  this  fact,  with  "  the  prophaneness  "  and  "  disorder  "  there  fer 
menting,  which  frightened  our  Fathers  away  from  their  dear  old 
home.  We  have  a  multitude  of  queer  books  and  pamphlets, 
the  relics  of  those  days,  —  quaint,  odd,  wild,  eccentric,  in  their 
contents,  gleaming  here  and  there  with  grand  and  startling  truths, 
and  proving  fully  this  affirmation,  that  there  is  not  a  cobweb  nor 
a  fancy,  a  notion  nor  a  theory,  a  conceit  nor  an  opinion  in  any 
living  brain  to-day,  in  Boston,  which  was  not  soon  after  the  emi 
gration  held  and  avowed  then  and  there.  And  this  positive 
statement,  if  it  does  not  exhaust,  at  any  rate  puts  to  trial,  the 
utmost  power  of  language.  These  dreams  and  heresies  of  vis 
ionaries,  mystics,  and  bold  thinkers,  were,  as  we  shall  note  by  and 
by,  especially  and  painfully  odious  to  those  from  whom  we 
inherit  this  Commonwealth.  They  wanted  to  get  away  from  all 
such  hateful  license,  and  to  find  protection  from  its  risk  in  a 
pledged  and  covenanted  purpose.  The  Fathers  of  Massachusetts, 
parting  with  their  lands  and  houses  at  home,  finally,  with  no 
intent  of  return,  once  for  all,  agreed  by  a  most  solemn  compact 
at  their  own  charges,  and  by  an  investment  of  all  their  worldly 
j^oods,  to  avail  themselves  of  their  charter  rights  over  the  terri 
tory  covered  by  their  patent,  to  try  here  an '  experiment,  which 
seemed  to  them  alike  noble,  practical,  and  religious. 

And  here  I  must  avail  myself  of  the  privilege  indulged  to  one 
who,  in  a  historical  review,  infers  from  results  and  developments 
the  nature  of  the  primary  causes  and  motives  which  originated 
and  guided  them.  From  the  frank  and  earnest  and  reiterated 
avowals  of  the  leaders  and  the  master-spirits  of  the  enterprise, 
and  from  their  steadfast  purpose  and  aim  manifested  in  all  their 
subsequent  measures,  plans,  legislation,  and  administration,  I 
infer  the  design  which  they  had  in  view.  I  should  have  a  right 
to  draw  such  an  inference,  if  I  had  to  do  it  solely  as  an  interpre 
ter  of  actions,  without  any  avowals  of  a  direct  sort  to  aid  me. 
But  these  avowals  in  words  are  not  wanting,  and  they  are  in  full 
harmony  with  the  deeds  done.  It  is  not  necessary,  to  assure  the 
position  which  I  take,  that  I  should  be  held  to  show  that,  if  the 
question  of  purpose  and  motive  had  been  put  to  each  and  every 
party  to  this  enterprise,  including  all  its  subordinates  and  ser 
vants,  he  would  have  answered  as  I  answer  for  its  leaders. 
Even  the  leaders  may  not  all  have  seen  the  full  shape  of  their 

4 


ERSITY 


50  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

vision.  But  I  have  no  misgiving  as  to  what  it  was.  The  enter 
prise  was  no  hap-hazard  experiment  in  drifting,  no  waiting  on  the 
luck  of  events;  The  serious  earnestness  with  which  it  was 
undertaken,  corresponds  to  the  resolute  purpose  with  which  it 
was  "pursued  by  them1" 

Their  lofty  and  soul-enthralling  aim  —  the,  condition  and 
reward  of  all  their  severe  sufferings  and  arduous  efforts  -\-  was 
the  establishment  and  administration  here  of  a  religious  and 
civil  commonwealth,  which  should  bear  the  same  relation  to  the 
spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  whole  .bible  that  tfieTewisn  common 
wealth  bore  to  the  .Law  of  Moses.  This  was  the  significance 
and  purport  of  the  remarkable,  words  written  by  Governor 
Winthrop,  on  his  passage  hither,  "  to  seek  out  a  place  of  cohabi 
tation  and  qonsortahip.  under  a  due  form  of  government,  both 
civil  and  ecclesiastical".  The  difference  between  the  aim  so 
denned  and  the  providing  "  a  refuge  for  civil  and  religious  free 
dom,"  will  appear  as  we  go  along.  An  experiment  was  to 
be  put  on  trial  here  which,  even  we  must  say,  had  a  right  to 
be  tested,  and  which  was  worthy  of  being  tested;  but  which 
was  regarded  by  our  Fathers  as  holding  them  under  a  con 
secrated  obligation  to  commit  themselves  to  it.  They  organized_ 
here  a  body  politic,  all  whose  laws,  functions,  and  institutions^^ 
had  rigid  reference  to  their  one  supreme  aim.  Thfljhr  PW"  nrm- 
sp.ipn^ps  w^re  hfild  under  thrall  by  itT  and  were. fee  only,in_jone 
direction  of  obligation  to  it,  —  that  of  whole-souled  and  life- 
lasting  loyalty  to  it.  ^)Two  misgivings  or  fears,  and  only  two, 
were  known  to  them :, first,  that  they  themselves,  by  fault  or 
infirmity,  might  fail  of  fidelity  to  it;  or,  second,  that  it  should 
be  brought  under  peril  from  the  wickedness  or  waywardness  of 
any  who  might  creep  in  or  start  up  among  them.'CSAgainstJthje 
first  danger,  they  sought  security  under  a  solemnly  pledged 
agreement  and  covenant,  binding  themselves  to  each  other  and 
_to  God.  Against  the  second  risk,  they  believed  they  could  pro 
tect  themselves  under  their  charter,  Jzy  cfrooshig  only  _sjich 
associates  as  they  desired,  and  on  their  own  terms,  and  by 
exercising  their  royally  sealed  authority  to  resist,  thwart,  punish, 
and  drive  out  every  one  who  might  oppose  or  annoy  them. 

Mark  the  qualification  in  the  statement  just  made,  —  that  the 
projected  religious  commonwealth  was  to  be  founded  and  ad- 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  51 

ministered  by  the  Bible,  the  whole  Bible,  not  by  the  New 
Testament  alone.  If,  as  Christians,  they  had  adopted  what  is 
generally  held  in  these  days  as  to  the  substantial  substitution 
of  the  New  Scripture  for  the  Old,  their  whole  creed  and  rule 
and  legislation  would  have  been  different.  But  they  revered 
and  used  and  treated  the  Holy  Book  as  one  whole.  A  single 
sentence  from  any  part  of  it  was  an  oracle  to  them :  it  was  as  a 
slice  or  a  crumb  from  any  part  of  a  loaf  of  bread,  all  of  the  same 
consistency.  God,  as  King,  had  been  the  Lawgiver  of  Israel : 
he  should  be  their  Lawgiver  too.  They  had  found  so  little 
satisfaction  under  the  legislation  of  me"i  thiti  they  longed  to  put  \v^£ 
themselves  under  the  legislation  ^>f  +JIA  JPeitv.  /  Israel,  as  a 
commonwealth,  had  been  administered  by  his  statutes :  those 
same  statutes  should  bind  their  consciences,  ratify  their  laws, 
and  rule  their  lives.  They  would  make  the  support  of  religion— 
<x>mpulsory,  as  did  the  Jewish  legislator.  The.  Sabbath-breaker 
and  the  blasphemer  should  stand  as  high  criminals.  The  Church 
should  fashion  the  State,  and  be  identical  with  "it!  \.Only  experi 
enced  and  covenanted  Christian  believers,  pledged  by  their 
profession  to  accordance  of  opinion  and  purpose  with  the  original 
proprietors  and  exiles,  should  be  admitted  as  freemen,  or  full 
citizens  of  the  commonwealth.  They  would  restrain  anH  lj|7"t  i 
their  own  liberty  of  conscience,  as  well  as  their  own  freedom 
of  action,  wiimn .  ±tiDie  ruiesA  In  fact.  —  in  spirit  even  more 
than  in  the  letter,  —  they  did  adopt  all  of  the  Jewish  code  which 
was  in  any  way  practicable  for  them.  The  leading  minister  of 
the  colony  was  formally  appointed  by  the  General  Court  to  adapt 
the  Jewish  law  to  their  case ;  and  it  was  enacted,  that,  till  that 
work  was  really  done,  "  Moses,  his  Judicials,"  should  be  in  full 
force.  Mr.  Cotton  in  due  time  presented  the  results  of  his. 
labor  in  a  code  of  laws  illustrated  by  Scripture  texts.  This 
code  was  not  formally  adopted  by  the  Court;  but  the  spirit  of  it, 
soon  rewrou^ht  into  another  body,  had  full  sway. 

It  was  known  "In  at"  Wmtnrop  had  written  what  he  calls  "  a 
small  treatise,"  in  1644,  at  a  period  of  some  internal  variance  in 
the  colony,  in  which  treatise  he  undertook  to  vindicate  the 
government  from  the  "  aspersion "  of  being  arbitrary  in  its 
conduct.  This  treatise  came  to  light  only  a  few  years 
ago,  among  some  family  papers,  in  the  Governor's  original 


52  THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OF  THE 

autograph.     In  it  are  found  the  following  very  decisive  state 
ments  :  — 

"  By  these  it  appears  that  the  officers  of  this  Bodye  politick  have  a 
Rule  to  walke  by,  in  all  their  administrations,  which  Rule  is  the  Worde 
of  ( ;<><!,  and  such  conclusions  and  deductions  as  are  or  shalbe  regularly 
drawn  from  thence.  .  .  . 

"  The  ffundamentalls  which  God  gave  to  the  Commonwealth  of  Israeli 
were  a  sufficient  Rule  to  them,  to  guide  all  their  Affaires  ;  we  havinge 
the  same,  with  all  the  Additions)  explanauonsancl  deductions,  which  have 
followed  ;  it  is  not  possible  we  should  want  a,  Rule  in  any  case:  if  God 
give  wisdome  to  discerne  it." 1 

In  the  life  of  Mr.  Cotton  by  his  friend  Mr.  Davenport,  we  find 
.he  following  most  explicit  statement,  which  shows  how  far 
these  Fathers  were  from  recognizing  the  plea  for  liberty  of  con 
science  :  — 

"  Considering  that  these  Plantations  had  liberty  to  mould  their  civil 
order  into  that  form  which  they  should  find  to  be  best  for  themselves,  and 
that  here  the  churches  and  Commonwealth  are  complanted  together  in 
holy  covenant  and  fellowship  with  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  Mr.  Cotton  did, 
at  the  request  of  the  General  Court  in  the  Bay,  draw  an  abstract  of  the 
laws  of  judgement  delivered  from  God  by  Moses  to  the  Commonwealth 
of  Israel,  so  far  forth  as  they  are  of  moral,  that  is,  of  perpetual  and  uni 
versal,  equity  among  all  nations ;  especially  .such  as  these  Plantations 
are  ;  wherein  he  advised  that  Theocrasie,  i.e.  God's  government,  might 
be  established  as  the  best  form  of  government,  wherein  thje  people  that 
choose  rulers,  are  God's  people  in  covenant  with  him,  that  is,  members  of 
churches,  and  the  men  chosen  by  them  to  be  rulers,  such  also,,  and  the 
laws  of  God,  and  the  ministers  of  God,  are  consulted  with  by  the  Governor, 
magistrates  and  people,  in  all  hard  cases  and  in  matters  of  the  Lord,  that 
is,  of  religion,"  &c.2 

In  July,  1634,  the  hearts  of  the  colonists  were  gladdened 
by  the  receipt  of  "  Certain  Proposals  made  by  Lord  Say,  Lord 
Brooke,  and  other  persons  of  quality,  as  conditions  of  their 
removing  to  England."  Hutchinson  has  preserved  these  for  us, 
by  printing  them  "  with  the  answers  thereto." 

Besides  proposing  an  aristocratic  class  for  recognition  in  the 
colony,  these  noblemen  desired  that  the  franchise  should  depend 

1  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  445.        2  Hutchinson's  Coll.  of  Papers,  p.  161. 


FOUNDERS   OP  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  COLONY.  53 

upon  property.     The  answer  vindicates,  wholly  from  Scripture 
texts  and  examples,  the  law  of  the  colony  which  restricted  the 

franchise  to  church-members. 

Ilutchinson  also  gives  us  a  letter,  on  the  same  occasion,  from 
Mr.  Cotton  to  Lord  Say  and  Sele,  which  is  in  itself  conclusive 
as  to  the  intent  of  the  authorities.  ,He  writes  in  vindication 
of  their  rule :  — 

"  God  hath  so  framed  the  state  of  church  government  and  ordinances, 
that  they  may  be  compatible  to  any  commonwealth,  though  never  so 
much  disordered  in  its  frame.  But  yet,  when  a  commonwealth  hath 
liberty  to  mould  its  own  frame  (scripturce  plenituduiem  (t'loro),  1  conceive 
the  scripture  hath  given  full  direction  for  the  right  ordering  of  the  same. 
It  is  better  that  the  Commonwealth  be  fashioned  to  the  setting  forth  of 
God's  house,  which  is  his  church,  than  to  accommodate  the  church  frame 
to  the  civil  state.  Democracy,  I  do  not  conceive,  that  ever  God  did 
ordain  as  a  fit  government  either  for  church  or  commonwealth.  If  the 
people  be  governors,  who  shall  be  governed?  As  for  Monarchy  and 
Aristocracy,  they  are  both  of  them  clearly  approved  and  directed  in 
ScTlpruTU,  ^el'-SO"  ITS" referreth  the "Sovereignty  to  himself,  and  settetli  up 
Theocracy  in  both,  as  the  best  form  of  Government  in  the  Common 
wealth,  as  well  as  in  the  church."  l 


Captain  Edward  Johnson,  that  serviceable  man  in  so  many 
capacities,  civil  and  military,  came  over  with  Winthrop's  com 
pany.  He  understood  well,  and  heartily  sympathized  with,  the 
purposes  of  the  colonists,  whose  toils  he  shared,  and  whose  for 
tunes  he  sought  to  record,  though  anonymously,  in  poetry  and 
verse,  —  distressing  as  some  of  the  latter  is.  His  quaint  and 
grotesque  but  still  instructive  book  —  "  Wonder-working  Provi 
dence  of  Sion's  Saviour  in  New  England  "  —  is  strewn  all  over 
with  the  tokens  characteristic  of  the  Biblical  model  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

As  a  deputy  of  the  Court,  and  himself  one  of  the  most 
laborious  and  efficient  members  of  the  committee  engaged  in  the 
protracted  work  of  digesting  a  body  of  laws,  he  may  be  regarded 
as  competent,  as  he  certainly  was  frank,  a  witness  of  the  intent 
which  underlaid  all  our  early  legislation.  The  following  words 
of  his  are  certainly  candid  enough  :  — 

"This  year,  1646,  the  General  Court  appointed  a  Committee  of  divers 

1  Hutchinson  History,  vol.  i.,  Appendix. 


54  THE  AIMS  AND   PURPOSES  OF  THE 

persons  to  draw  up  a  Body  of  laws  for  the  well  ordering  of  this  little 
Commonwealth :  and  to  the  end  that  they  might  be  most  agreeable  with 
the  rule  of  Scripture,  in  every  county  there  was  appointed  two  Magistrates, 
,two  Ministers,  and  two  able  persons  from  among  the  people,  who  having 
provided  such  a  competent  number  as  was  meet,  together  with  the  former 
that  were  enacted  newly  amended,  they  presented  them  to  the  General 
Court,  where  they  were  again  perused  and  amended ;  and  then  another 
committee  chosen  to  bring  them  into  form,  and  present  them  to  the  Court 
again,  who  the  year  following  passed  an  Act  of  confirmation  upon  them, 
and  so  committed  them  to  the  Press;  and  in  the  year  1648,  they  were 
printed,  and  now  are  to  be  seen  of  all  men,  to  the  end  that  none  may  plead 
ignorance ;  and  that  all  who  intend  to  transport  themselves  hither,  may 
know  this  is  no  place  of  licentious  liberty,  nor  will  this  people  suffer  any 
to  trample  down  this  vineyard  of  the  Lord,  but  with  diligent  execution 
will  cut  off  from  the  City  of  the  Lord,  the  wicked  doers ;  and  if  any  man 
can  shew  wherein  any  of  them  derogate  from  the  Word  of  God,  very 
willingly  will  they  accept  thereof,  and  amend  their  imperfections  (the 
Lord  assisting)  ;  but  let  not  any  ill-affected  persons  find  fault  with  them, 
because  they  suit  not  with  their  own  humour,  or  because  they  meddle  with 
matters  of  Religion,  for  it  is  no  wrong  to  any  man,  that  a  people  who  have 
spent  their  estates,  many  of  them,  and  ventured  their  lives  for  to  keep 
faith  and  a  pure  conscience,  to  use  all  means  that  the  Word  of  God  allows 
for  maintenance  and  continuance  of  the  same,  especially  they  have  taken 
up  a  desolate  Wilderness  to  be  their  habitation,  and  not  deluded  any  by 
keeping  their  profession  in  huggermug,  but  point  and  proclaim  to  all  the 
way  and  course  they  intend,  God  willing,  to  walk  in  ;  if  any  will  yet, 
notwithstanding,  seek  to  justle  them  out  of  their  own  right,  let  them  not 
wonder  if  they  meet  with  all  the  opposition  a  people  put  to  their  greatest 
straits  can  make,"  &C.1 

These  extracts,  and  a  score  of  others  of  a  similar  purport 
might  be  culled  from  the  writings  of  the  leading  exiles,  tell  the 
whole  story.  The  actual  code  of  laws  adopted  by  the  colon 
—  called  "  The  Bodie  of  Liberties,"  prepared  mainly  by  the  Rev. 
Nathaniel  "Ward  of  Ipswich  —  diilers  essentially  from  Mr. 
*••>  Cotton's  abstract,  especially  in  dispensing  for  the  most  part  with 
scriptural  citations ;  but  in  no  single  particular  did  the  legislation 
indicated  by  it,  look  away  from  or  loosen  its  hold  upon  the 
supreme  purpose  of  the  authorities,  to  establish  and  jadministei 
here  a  strictly  Biblical  Commonwealth.  Ward,  who  had  had  an 


Book  iii.  chap.  T.,  Poole's  ed.,  p.  206. 


FOUNDERS   OP  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  55 

early  legal  training  in  England,  stood  for  that  aim  and  experi 
ment  as  firmly  as  did  Cotton. 

And  then  we  are  to  remind  ourselves  that  their  Bible  faith 
was  not  merely  a  simply  vague  and  general  reverence  for  it,  like 
the  sentiment  which  lingers  now  with  their  descendants.  They 
had  no  theory  about  the  Bible :  they  never  criticised  it ;  and 
they  rarely  suggested  amendments,  even  of  the  English  transla 
tion  of  it.  They  loved,  honored,  and  revered  it,  and  gave  to  it 
the  homage  of  their  awed  spirits.  What  testimony  is 
this  fact  in  their  letters  and  cEaflW,  in  the  implicit  faith  with 
which  they  took  down  the  texts  and  expositions  of  their  minis 
ters,  and  quoted  illustrations  and  parallelisms  from  the  Bible,  as 
decisions  for  all  cases !  How  earnestly  did  they  strive  to  incor 
porate  into  their  private  and  family  life,  not  only  the  preceptive, 
but  as  much  as  they  could  of  even  the  ceremonial,  matter  of  the 
Scriptures ! 

That  frankly  avowed  and  practically  applied  purpose  of  the 
Ffrfh^rg;  ^f  publishing  fr^re  a  Bible  Commonwealth, (<  under  a 
due  form  of  government,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,"  furnishes" 
the  key  to,  the  explanation  of,  all  the  dark  things  and  all  the 
bright  things  in  their  early  history.  The  young  people  educated 
among  us  ought  to  read  our  history  by  that  simple,  plain  inter 
pretation.  The  consciences  of  our  Fathers  were  not  free  in  our 
sense  of  that  word.  They  were  held  under  rigid  subjection  to 
what  they  regarded  as  God's  Holy  Word,  through  and  throi 
in  every  sentence  of  it,  just  as  Ibfi  CUliyciences  of  their  Fathers 
were  held,  under  the  sway  of  the  Pope  and  the  Roman  Church. 
The  Bible  was  to  them  supreme.  Their  church  was  based  on  it, 
modelled— by  itr~gaYeiaed  by  it ;  and  they  intended  their  btate 
ghonlfl  HP  nlsin  Two  very  striking  and  emphatic  sentences  from 
the  pen  of  Governor  Winthrop  convey  the  substance  of  vol 
umes;  and  who  had  better  right  than  he  to  tell  us  his  own 
aim  and  that  of  his  associates  ? 

"  Whereas  the  wav  of  God  hath  always  been  to  gather  hi«  ^lUrcbfi" 

out  of  the  world ;  now,  the  world,  or  civil  state,  —  must  be  raised  out  of 
the  churches."  —  "The  Magistrates  are  limited^  both  by  their  church 
Covenant,  and  by  their  oath,  and  by  the  duty  of  their  places  to  square  all 
tb&ir  proceedings  by  the  rule  of  God's  Word  [why  did  lie  not  say  by  the 


56  THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OF  THE 

law  of  England?]  for  the  advancement  of  the  Gospel  and  the  weale 
publick,"  &C.1 

This  was  their  master  aim,  —  this  was  the  vision  of  the  soul 
which  led  those  exiles  hither,  —  and  by  the  inspiration  of  which 
alone,  would  they  have  come,  or  remained,  or  prospered.  Con 
strained,  compulsory,  and  rigidly  enforced  subjection  to  the 

consecrated^  purpose  and  rule_  of  Jjieir  enterprise  required  of 
those  who  imposed  or  recognized  it,  a  personal  suil'cmiLr  under 
it,  a  painful  loyalty  to  it,  fully  as  severe,  as  tasking  to  the  energies 
of  human  nature,  as  were  the  disabilities  and  penalties  which 
they  stood  ready  to  inflict  upon  all  opponents  and  mischief- 
makers.  It  is  worth  our  while  to  remember  that  the  heads  of 
that  Commonwealth,  its  legislators  and  magistrates,  found  their 
own  yoke  a  very  hard  one  in  the  bearing.  Winthrop,  Dudley, 
Saltonstall,  and  others,  the  highest  among  them,  were  called  to 
question,  put  under  discipline,  and  bound  to  penalties.  While 
their  scruples  forbade  the  kissing  of  the  Bible,  in  the  administra 
tion  of  an  oath,  their  conduct  and  "  carriage  "  were  tried  by  the 
statutory  authority  of  that  Book. 

We  must  consider  this  also :  these  Fathers  were  proprietors 
by  purchase,  members  of  a  private  joint-stock  company,  holding 
this  territory  under  mercantile  conditions.  They  had  the  rights 
of  corporators.  After  parting  with  their  property  in  England  to 
commit  themselves  to  their  enterprise,  they  subjected  it  to  risks 
in  the  transfer  and  occupancy  here,  which,  as  local  residents  on 
their  own  territory,  it  was  wise  in  them  to  foresee,  and  prudent 
to  provide  against.  They  did  not  put  the  right  of  franchise 
among  them  at  a  money  value.  It  was  not  to  be  purchased  at 
any  price.  They  would  confer  it  on  conditions  of  their  own, 
but  never  sold  it  to  ^iny  one.  No  one,  resident  or  stranger, 
could  lay  claim  to  it.  The  mass  of  those  who  came  over  with 

1  These  very  significant  statements  are  from  Winthrop's  "  Beply,"  &c.,  to 
Vane's  "  '  Briefe  Answer/  "  &c.,  to  "  A  Defence  of  an  Order  of  Court  made  in  the 
year  1637,"  concerning  the  giving  the  magistrates  power  to  deny  to  any,  by  their 
own  rule,  the  right  of  residence  here.  It  must  be  owned  that  Mr.  Vane  presses  the 
honored  governor  with  very  able  and  cogent  objections  to  the  assumption  of 
the  magistrates.  Winthrop,  certainly,  has  recourse  to  special  pleading.  But  the 
specialty  is  based,  like  all  the  early  legislation  of  the  colony,  upon  the  foregone  con 
clusion  of  a  Bible  Commonwealth.  (Hutchinson's  Coll.  Papers,  pp.  88-98.) 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  57 


the  company^  were  simply  hired  servants  of  the  company  • 

thQsp  Ay|inm  thp.y  found  here  were  interlopers  and  squattersTl 
The  proprietors  had  a  right  to  say  on  what  terms  other  per 

sons  should  come  here  to  abide,  to  vote,  to  take  any  part  in  the 
administration  of  affairs,  —  perilling  either  their  property  or  their 
enterprise,  —  which  was  a  consecrated  experiment.  Mark  these 
words  of  Governor  Winthrop,  when  he  found  occasion,  in  the 
controversy  with  Vane,  to  stand  for  these  proprietary  rights:  — 

"  Let  the  Patent  be  perused,  and  there  it  will  be  found,  that  the  ineor- 
poration  is  made  to  certain  persons  by  name,  and  unto  such  as  (hoy 
shall  associate  to  themselves,  and  all  this  tract  of  land  is  granted  to  them 
and  their  associates. 


otner  can  caim  privilege  with  them  but  by  free  cpnsent." 
It  is  true  the  original  proprietors  and  exiles  were  most  glad  to 
welcome  new-comers  of  spirit  and  purpose  like  their  owjn  ;  but 
thev  were  veffiJsfifiB  ft"d  "grid  in  th^i*  «/»mfiiny  Yankee  inquisi- 
tiveness,  which  was  but  old  English  shrewdness,  sharpened  on 
our  granite  whetstones,  began  then  its  famed  skill  in  interroga 
tions  put  to  all  strangers.  They  wished  to  know  every  new 
comer  thoroughly,  outside  and  inside  ;  whence  he  carne  ;  what  he 
wanted;  what  he  believed;  if  possible,  what  he  thought;  what 
he  intended  to  do  ;  what  was  his  substance  ;  what  was  his  spirit. 
And  these  conditions  were  perfectly  well  understood  in  the  Old 
World,  by  those  likely  to  come  hitherwards.  No  man,  who  is 
meditating  an  assault  upon  a  hornet's  or  a  wasp's  nest,  better 
understands  the  nature  of  his  enterprise,  and  the  sort  of  reception 
he  will  have,  than  did  the  Familist,  Antinomian,  Anabaptist,  or 
Quaker,  know  beforehand  how  Massachusetts  would  entertain 
him.  s  Hrmrfpgy,  hinfifltYi  oll  &**  principles,  required  that  the 
rights  and  purposes  of  iho  legal  proprietors  should  "be  '  respectec 
by  all  others. 

^rflMMHMHBHP|IIHHVMMHBVflMBMi  ^ 

The  conclusion  is  obvious.  These  exiled  colonists,  having 
embarked  all  their  worldly  goods  in  this  enterprise,  would  be  dis- 
maved  and  roinpH  hy  its  failure.  Having  solemnly  covenant**} 
witn  separate  churches  as  Englishmen  at  home,  they  had  entered 
into  another  solemn  agreement  with  each  other,  outside  of  their 
rconrt-meeting,  before  thev  embarkecl.  \ 

This  «  Agreement"  was  .made  at  Cambridge,  England,  on 
Aug.   26,    1629,    and   was   subscribed    by   those   who    pledged 


58  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

themselves  to  embark  on  the  following  March.  In  it  they  say 
they  have  engaged  themselves  to  their  enterprise,  after  having 
"  weighed  the  greatness  of  the  work,  in  regard  of  the  consequence, 
God's  glory,  and  the  churches'  good."  They  face  "  the  difficul 
ties  and  the  discouragements"  before  them.  They  considered 
this  "  withal,  that  this  whole  adventure  grows  upon  the  joint  con 
fidence  we  have  in  each  other's  fidelity  and  resolution  herein,  so 
as  no  man  of'us  would  have  adventured  it  without  assurance  of 
the  rest."  The,  agreement  was  condiiioir.il,  on  this  proviso, 
"that  before  the  last  of  September  next,  the  whole  government, 
together  with  the  patent  for  the  said  plantation,  be  first,  by  an 
order  of  court,  legally  transferred  and  established  to  remain  with 
us,  and  others  which  shall  inhabit  upon  the  said  plantation."1 

One  other  paper,  very  important  in  its  bearings  on  this  point, 
is  to  be  carefully  noted,  because  as  it  was  prepared  and  circulated 
on  the  other  side  of  the  water,  as  preliminary  to,  and  designed 
to  induce,  the  emigration,  it  exposes  to  us  the  intent  of  the 
ip  fljy.  enterprise.  It  is  entitled,  a~ 


for  the  Plantation  in  New  England,  with  an  Answer  to  Several 
Objections,"  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  AVe 
have  now  four  copies  of  the  substance  of  this  paper,  with  vari 
ations  and  comments  from  the  different  hands  under  which  it 
passed.  It  was  a  document  which  served  a  high  agency  in  pro- 
moting  the  enterprise,  being  passed  from  friend  u>  friend,  and 
used  in  those  .cross-country  rides  and  night  consultations  which 
drew  its  master-spirits  into  it.  One  copy  of  it,  as  has  been  re 
lated,  came  from  the  hands  of  that  noble  patriot,  Sir  John  Eliot, 
in  the  Tower  ;  and  was  sent  by  him  to  his  friend  and  compeer, 
John  Hampden.  There  is  a  religious  spirit  and  tone  in  the 
whole  paper.  The  seventh  of  the  considerations  reads  thus:  — 

"What  can  be  a  better  work,  and  more  noble  and  worthy  a  Christian, 
than  to  help  to  raisejand  support  a  particular  church  while  it  is  in  its 
infancy,  and  to  join  our  forces  with  such  a  company  of  'faithful  people," 
&c.3 

There  is  a  remarkable  recognition  in  this  document  of  a  deeply 
ominous  foreboding,  often  finding  utterance  from  the  pens  and 
hearts  of  the  leading  colonists,  that  a  catastrophe  of  utter  anarchy 

l  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  25.  2  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  27. 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  V     59 

and  ruin  was  impending  threateningly,  at  the  time,  over  the  realm 
and  the  religion  of  England.  From  that  awful  wreck  they  would 
save  the  gospel,  by  transplanting  it,  and  rearing  for  it  a  church 
which  should  guide  the  Commonwealth.  The  following  solemn 
sentences  meant  more  to  devout  hearts  in  those  days  than  they 
mean  to  us  :  — 

"  Secondly,  all  other  churches  of  Europe  are  brought  to  desolation  ;  and 
it  may  be  justly  teared  that  the  11E6  JflflffiTflenE  16  coming  upon  us  rand 
who  knows  but  that  God  hath  provided  this  place  [New  England]  to  be  a 

r^fnorp.  -far  many  whom  he  means  to" save  out  of  Luc  lieuerul  destruction." 


This  was  indeed  a  reason  for  regarding  it  "  a  service  to  the 
church  of  great  consequence,  to  carry  the  Gospell  into  those  parts 
of  the  world." 

These  Fathers  of  Massachusetts  having  thus  solemnly  cove 
nanted  with  each  other,  in  the  terms  of  their  august  experiment, 
were  bound  to  stand  for  it,  and  to  try  it  with  heart  and  soul  and 
life.  Any  thing  or  any  body  that  perilled  it,  any  stranger  or 
interloper  coming  among  them,  or  a  troublesome  spirit  rising  up 
of  themselves,  must  be  dealt  with  in  a  summary  way.  He 
brought  under  risk  every  thing  which  they  had,  or  hoped  for,  or 
revered.  They  were  themselves  under  the  same  bond  and  pledge 
which  they  exacted  of  others.  I  They  were  all  in  the  wilderness. 
They  were  straitened  of  thejr  qiyii  natqyfrl  and  lawful  tfcerty  in 
many  ways  and  things.  They  Avere  held  to  personal  and  inuuial 
covenants  of  the  most:  stringent  sort.  They  could  not  say  what 
they  pleased,  still  less  do  as  they  pleased.  They  had  made 
themselves  amenable  to  what  they  called  "the  Gospel  rule;" 
and,  if  they  swerved  or  broke  terms,  the  penalty  was  sure  and 
stern.  ..-They  were  no  triflers,  no  summer-day  dreamers,  no  fancy 
theorists,  such  as  we  have  in  our  day.  They  knew  well  what  an 
opinion  like  theirs  cost ;  what  a  conviction  and  a  belief  meant ; 
what  the  enterprise  which  they  had  in  hand  involved  to  those 
who  were  determined  to  embark  in  it.  They  had  looked  before 
them  very  deliberately :  they  had  fronted  the  conditions  of  their 
work,  and  come  to  meet  them.  They  encountered  no  opposition 
or  discomfiture  which  they  had  not  provided  for. 

At  the  first  General  Court  of  the  company  held  on  this  soil, 
May  18,  1631,  one  hundred  aud  eighteen  persons  applied  to  be 


60  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

admitted  as  freemen,  voters,  new  and  full  partners.  Here  was  a 
startling  and  critical  predicament  for  the  company,  represented 
by  less  than  a  dozen  of  the  actual  proprietors  and  administrators 
under  the  charter.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  Some  of  the  appli 
cants  for  the  franchise  were  "  old  planters,"  or  squatters ;  some 
had  been  sent  here,  and  others  had  been  just  brought  here,  as 
hired  servants  of  the  company ;  and  others  still  were  suspected  or 
disaffected  persons,  of  a  sort  which  a  Quarter  court  had  already 
judged  "  unmeet  to  inhabit  here."  Should  this  miscellaneous 
multitude  be  at  once  lifted  to  a  place  and  power  which  put  the 
whole  enterprise  effectually  at  their  mercy  ?  The  court  was 
alarmed,  as  well  it  might  be.  It  was  alarmed,  but  it  confronted 
the  juncture.  These  applicants  were  admitted  to  the  franchise, 
having  first  taken  the  freeman's  oath.  The  oaths  formally  en 
tered  upon  the  Records,  for  every  officer  and  member  of  the 
company,  furnish  in  themselves  very  significant  matter  bearing 
upon  the  intent  of  the  colonists  as  already  set  forth,  to  establish 
here  a  Biblical  Commonwealth.  Before  the  transfer  of  the 
charter,  the  form  of  oath  for  the  governor,  deputy,  and  assistants, 
bound  them  "tr>  admit  none  to  be  free  of  this^fellowship  but 
sTinh  n«  may  p]nim  |fog  gftrne  by  virtue  of  our  privileges."  But 
after  the  charter  had  been  transferred,  and  the  government  had 
been  set  up  here,  these  official  oaths  had  been  significantly 
changed  into  this  form :  the  governor  anal  ^magistrates  Jbpund 
themselves  to  administer  the  government  "  according  to  the  laws 
of  God,  and  for  the  advancement  of  his  Gospel,  the  laws  of  this 
land,  and  the  good  of  the  people  of  this  plantation.''  This 
change  in  tfie  form  of  the  oath  meant  all  that  it  implies. 

And  whoever  took  the  first  freeman's  oath  here,  swore  as  fol 
lows  :  — / 

"  I  do  freely  and  sincerely  acknowledge  that  I  am  justly  and  lawfully 
subject  to  the  government  of  the  Company :  and  do  accordingly  submit 
my  person  tand  estate  to  be  protected,  ordered,  and  governed  by  the  laws 
and  constitutions  thereof." 

Yet  before  letting  in  this  crowd  of  citizens,  "  the  generalise," 
as  they  were  called,  the  Court  agreed  and  ordered,  that  hence 
forward  the  freemen  should  vote  for  the  body  of  assistants,  who, 
after  being  chosen,  should  elect  a  governor  and  deputy  out  of 


LEGISLATION   AND    HISTORY.  497 

amount  from  taxes,  tuition,  and  funds,  and  expended  on  public 
schools,  private  schools,  and  academies,  exclusive  of  the  expenses 
of  buildings  and  school-books,  is  $3,160,665.94 ;  which  is  equal 
to  the  sum  of  over  $12  for  every  person  in  the  State  between 
five  and  fifteen  years  of  age."  1 

Besides  these,  we  know  what  large  sums  are  annually  spent 
in  buildings  and  in  school-books. 

There  is  another  work,  another  change,  which  has  been  silently 
and  constantly  going  on,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Board  of 
Education  and  the  secretaries,  and  through  their  great  organs 
the  Normal  schools  and  the  enlightened  experience  of  the  people, 
not  less  important  than  any  other  that  has  been  spoken  of.  The 
common  schools  have,  every  year  since  the  establishment  of  the 
Board,  been  taught  and  managed  by  a  larger  number  of  females 
than  in  any  year  before.  To  take  only  the  last  eleven  years  that 
have  been  reported.  The  whole  number  of  different  persons 
employed  as  teachers  in  the  public  schools,  during  the  year  1856, 
was  7,153,  of  whom  1,768  were  males  and  5,385  females. 

The  whole  number  employed  in  1867  was  7,759,  of  whom 
1,020  were  males  and  6,739  females ;  showing  an  addition,  in 
eleven  years,  to  the  number  of  female  teachers,  of  1,354,  or  123, 
on  an  average,  each  year ;  and  a  diminution  in  the  number  of 
male  teachers  of  748,  or  68  a  year,  the  number  of  schools  having 
increased  in  those  eleven  years  from  4,300  to  4,838. 

In  the  matter  of  compensation  to  female  teachers,  there  always 
has  been,  and  still  is,  a  deplorable  disregard  of  propriety,  right 
feeling,  and  justice.  The  average  wages  of  female  teachers  in 
1837  were  $11.38  per  month ;  less  than  $3  a  week.  They  are 
now,  or  were  in  1867,  $26.44  per  month,  that  is,  $6.61  a  week ; 
an  increase  of  50  cents  a  month  each  year  for  thirty  years.  But 
still  what  a  wretched  pittance  for  such  services!  Absolutely 
unintelligent  labor,  mere  digging,  is  better  paid  than  the  intelli 
gent,  refining  devotion  and  care  of  highly  educated  teachers. 

not,"  as  Mr.  Webster  said,  "  subject  the  property  of  those  who  have  estates  to  a 
burden  for  a  purpose  more  favorable  to  the  poor,  and  more  useful  to  the  whole  com 
munity.  This  is  the  living  fountain  which  supplies  the  ever-flowing,  ever-refreshing, 
ever-fertilizing  stream  of  public  instruction  and  general  intelligence."  —  D.  Webster's 
Speech  in  Massachusetts  Convention  ofl&20. 

1  Thirty-first  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Education  and  of  the  Secretary, 
Hon.  Joseph  White. 

32 


498  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

One  can  hardly  help  feeling  that  the  mere  cleaning  of  streets, 
digging  of  ditches,  and  raising  crops  of  potatoes  and  cabbages, — 
all  to  be  forgotten  in  a  year,  —  are  more  important,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  fathers  of  the  people,  than  the  refinement,  elevation,  and 
delicate  training  of  their  children,  on  which  their  own  happiness, 
after  middle  life,  will  depend,  more  than  on  all  other  causes 
together. 

Now,  are  not  the  legislation  of  Massachusetts,  in  regard  to  the 
School  Fund  and  the  Normal  schools,  and  the  action  of  the 
agents  of  the  State  in  carrying  this  legislation  into  effect,  in  per 
fect  keeping  with  that  legislation  of  our  Fathers,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  the  object  of  praise  and  admiration  throughout  the  world  ? 
In  this  one  particular,  we  have  not  fallen  below  their  high  stand 
ard.  We  have,  through  our  Governor  and  Council,  selected, 
year  after  year,  from  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  State,  such  per 
sons,  to  form  the  Board  of  Education,  as  seemed  best  fitted,  by 
their  wisdom,  experience,  and  knowledge  of  the  wants  and  actual 
working  of  the  schools,  to  take  charge,  without  pecuniary  remu 
neration,  of  the  interests  of  education ;  and  we  have  required  the 
Board  "  to  lay  before  the  Legislature  an  annual  report  of  school 
returns,  and  of  all  the  doings  of  the  Board,  with  such  observations 
upon  the  condition  and  efficiency  of  the  system  of  popular  edu 
cation,  and  such  suggestions  as  to  the  most  practical  means  of 
improving  and  extending  it,  as  the  experience  and  reflection  of  the 
Board  dictate."  1 

The  Board  have  chosen  to  the  office  of  secretary,  who  is  the 
organ  of  communication  between  the  State,  its  officers  and 
representatives,  and  all  the  schools  of  the  State,  men  —  Horace 
Mann,  Barnas  Sears,  George  S.  Boutwell,  Joseph  White  —  as 
signally  well  qualified  for  the  office  as  could  be  found  in  the 
State,  perhaps  in  the  world. 

A  Twenty-fourth  Report,  sec.  3,  p.  64. 


Cambridge  :  Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  John  Wilson  £  Son. 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE  MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  61 

their  own  number,  and  should  be  the  legislators,  and  also  should 
appoint  all  officers  of  the  law.  This  restriction  was,  howeverT 
removed  the  next  year,  and  the  freemen  resumed  their  right  of 
voting  directly  for  governor  and  deputy.  Of  the  newly  admit 
ted  freemen,  more  than  half  were^already  church-members,  and 
others  soon  became  so.  A  few  of  them  proved  intractable  or 
mischievous  persons,  and  had  afterwards  to  be  dealt  with  by 
summary  or  deliberate  process.  The  shock  of  apprehension, 
almost  of  dismay,  to  which  the  Court  had  been  subjected,  led  to 
the  adoption  of  that  rule  and  older*  fpr  prospective  *6pemftonf 
which  has  been  made  the  reproach  and  jeer  oJL  the  early  legisla- 
tioh  of  Massachusetts.  It  stands  on  our  Records  in  these 
words :  — 

"  To  the  end  the  body  of  the  commonsmay  be  preserved  of  honest  and 
good  men,  it  was  likewise  onVred  and  agreed,  that  for  time  to  come  no 
man  shall  be  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  this  body  politic,  but  such  as  are 

members  of  some  of  the  cliurclies  within  the  limits  of  the  same."  1 

Looked  at  in  the  light  of  our  days,  or  even  by  the  contemporary 
working  of  the  rule  as  experimental  trial  tested  it,  we,  of  course, 
may  denounce  it,  or  ridicule  it.  But  we  must  be  fair  to  those  who 
lived  by  their  own  light,  and  tried  a  serious  enterprise.  In  estab- 
lishing  that  rule,  the  company  exercised  a  charter-right,  by  their 
own  interpretation  clearly  conferred  upon  them  ;  and  sought,  with 
out  doing  wrong  to  any,  to  protect  and  defend  themselves,  their 
own  franchise,  their  own  property,  their  own  great  design.  What 
else,  what  less,  than  this  could  they  have  done  for  their  own 
security  ?  Even  if  only  as  the  responsible  administrators  of  a 

1  Court  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  87. 

Mr.  Cotton,  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Say,  Lord  Brook,  &c.,  in  1636,  says  (Hutch. 
Hist.,  vol.  i.  Appen.  435),  that  no  church-members  "are  excluded  from  the  liberty 
of  freemen."  But  the  being  a  church-member  did  not,  of  itself,  constitute  a  freeman. 
The  application  for  the  privilege  must  be  made  to  the  Court,  and  there  be  sub 
mitted  to  the  vote  of  the  other  citizens ;  and  then,  if  the  candidate  passed,  he  had 
to  take  the  freeman's  oath.  It  would  seem,  however,  that  tbere  was  soon  a  con 
siderable  number  of  church-members  who  did  not  seek  the  privilege  of  citizenship ; 
perhaps  shrinking  from  its  annoyances  and  responsibilities.  For,  in  1643,  the  Court 
"  Ordered,  concerning  members  that  refuse  to  take  their  freedom,  the  churches 
should  be  writ  unto,  to  deale  with  them."  (Records,  ii.  p.  38.) 

Lechford,  just  before  this  time,  wrote  that  "  Three  parts  of  the  people  of  the 
country  remain  out  of  the  church." 


62  THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OF  THE 

local  government,  they  had  had  an  ordinary  concern  to  avert  dis 
order  and  anarchy,  and  to  maintain  morality  and  religion,  they 
could  hardly,  in  those  days,  have  stopped  short  of  that  rule,  at 
least  in  its  substance,  or  in  an  equivalent  alternative.  In  every 
Christian  State,  religion  was  then  established ;' and  uniformity  of 
subjection  to  it.  was  imposed  by  laws  and  penalties.1 

The  inference^  then,  seemed  to  be  that  the  more  scriptural, 
authoritative,  pure,  and  practicable  a  method  or  type  of  religion 
was,  the  better  was  it  entitled  to  the  legislative  warrant. 

But  if  the  Fathers  of  Massachusetts  were  under  the  sway  and 
in  the  service  of  the  aim  which  has  been  denned  as  theirs,  they 
had  especial  reason,  as  they  had  legal  right,  in  requiring  of  all 
who  sought  to  vote  about  their  property  and  their  experiment, 
that  they  should  be  in  accord  with  them.  They  chose  to  put 
foremost  this  condition,  and  to  insist  upon  it :  (  Commit  your 
selves  to  our  opinion,  conviction,  and  purpose,  then  we  will  let 
you  in  :  join  our  religions  fellowship,  and  you  shall  share  our 
pjy^l  rig)]JB(jgiJj}j[MltlBfl  Thp.y  thought  confidently 

—  for  them,  reasonably  —  that  they  should  thus  make  sure  for  a 
stock  of  citizens,  if  not  of  saints,  yet  of  those  who  were  out 
wardly,  visibly,  and  constrainedly  free  from  the  more  scandalous 
and  mischievous  human  failings.  ^At.jiny  rate,  they  did  thus 
make  sure  of  men  who,  before,  God  and  their  fellows,  had  volun 
tarily  pledged  and  covenanted  themselves,  by  a  well-defined 
standard  of  obligation,  the  bond  of  a  rigid  intercommunion.  No 

1  In  maintaining  their  form  of  administration  of  religion  by  a  public  tax,  and 
making  an  attendance  upon  its  services  compulsory,  the  colonists  did  but  follow  the 
example  of  their  native  country.  In  the  colony  of  Virginia,  in  1610,  attendance  at 
church  twice  every  Sunday  was  enjoined  "  upon  pain,  for  the  first  fault,  to  lose  their 
provision  and  allowance  for  the  whole  week  following;  for  the  second,  to  lose  said 
allowance,  and  also  to  be  whipped;  and  for  the  third  to  suffer  death."  (Force's 
Tracts  iii.  (ii.)  11.)  Subsequent  modifications  of  the  law  in  Virginia  were  as  follows  : 
"  The  Governor  published  several  edicts,  —  That  every  person  should  go  to  church 
Sundays  and  holidays  :  or  lie  Neck  and  Heels  that  night,  and  be  a  slave  to  the,  colony 
the  following  week ;  for  the  second  offence  he  should  be  a  slave  for  a  month  ;  for  the 
third,  a  year  and  a  day."  (Stith,  p.  147.  1618.) 

In  Virginia  Assembly,  Aug.  4,  1619.  "  All  persons  whatsoever  upon  the  Sab 
bath  days,  shall  frequent  divine  service  and  sermons,  both  forenoon  and  afternoon, 
and  every  one  that  shall  transgress  this  law,  shall  forfeit  three  shillings  a  time,  to 
the  use  of  the  church :  all  lawful  and  necessary  impediments  excepted.  But  if  a 
servant  in  this  case  shall  wilfully  neglect  his  master's  commands,  he  shall  suffer 
bodily  punishment." 


FOUNDERS  OP  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  COLONY.  63 

man  could  get  into  a  church  except  through  profession,  confes 
sion,  and  the  taking  of  a  vowr  and  the  putting  himself  under  the 
discipline  of  a  brotherhood.  Those  who  had  passed  that  ordeal, 
and  were  still  held  to  its  copiirniovia  f-o.utrol7  were  to  be  regarded 
as  CHristfans  and  Christians  mighiJto-tettotod  QJ~  citizens.  \  So 


far  were  the  Fathers  of  Massachusetts  from  feeling  that  thev 

____  r  linT^arBI-^a»».^^^«»^aM» 

wronged  any  one  by  establishing  this  rule,  that  they  were  assured 
that  they  were  adopting  an  eminently  wise  'way  in  conferring  a 

privilege  which  they  might  have  withheld.  It  was  fully  compe 
tent  for  them  to  have  declined  making  any  more  freemen  on  any 
terms.  They  made  more  because  they  wished  for  more,  provided 
thevjxmhThave  them  of  their  own  sort,  which  was  got  onr  soyfr  . 

Those  who  were  not  freemen  or  voters  had  rights  and  privi 
leges  secured  to  them  which  still  made  them  members  of  "  ye  body 
politique."  The  twelfth  of  the  "  Bodie  of  Liberties  "  made  this 
provision  :  — 

"  Every  man,  whether  inhabitant  or  foreigner,  free  or  not  free,  shall 
have  libertie  to  come  to  any  publique  Court,  Councel,  or  Towne  meeting, 
and  either  by  speech  or  writing,  to  move  any  lawfull,  seasonable,  and  ma- 
teriall  question,  or  to  present  any  necessary  motion,  complaint,  petition, 
Bill  or  information,  whereof  that  meeting  hath  proper  cognizance,  so  it  be 
done  in  convenient  time,  due  order,  and  respective  manners." 

To  construct  a  commonwealth  out  of  a  church,  as  the  hon- 
ored  and  noETe^Winfbrop  so  frankly  avowed  it,  and  to  admin- 
ister  all  civil  affairs  by  church-members,  •  —  that  jwa  s  the  intent 
of  tftft  RMlhders  ot  tnis  colony;  VThey  meant  that  the  rulers  and 
those  who  chose  the  rulers  should  be  upright,  God-fearing  men, 
as,  in  a  most  emphatic  sense,  they  were  themselves.  Enough 
of  such  men,  they  believed,  could  be  found,  —  men  renewed, 
baptized  in  the  Spirit,  gifted  with  wisdom,  in  faithful  covenant 
with  Christ,  their  Master.  Yet  they  were  not  to  depend  upon, 
nor  to  trust  to,  their  own  wisdom,  nor  to  follow  their  natural 


consciences.  ,  Thev  ha^  |pftfl>a  ^fof*!  —  Hivino.  atntnfp.^  qrj  in- 
spired  oracle.  Some  of  our  ancestors  used  the  Bible  in  earlier 
English  versions ;  but  our  version  had  won  its  way  to  the  hearts 
of  many  of  them.  The  free  and  authorized  circulation  of  the 
royal  version  wrought  an  effect  in  England  which  we  can 
scarcely  make  real  to  ourselves.  It  took  the  place  of  pope, 
church,  and  minister  for  thousands,  whom  it  brought  under  the 


(34  THE  AIMS  AND   PURPOSES  OF  THE 

direct  teaching  of  God.  Those  who  read  it  with  that  moderated 
control  of  their  own  eccentric  tendencies  which  would  insure  a 
common  influence  from  it,  brought  themselves  under  subjection 
to  it.  Individual  fanatics  and  "  private  interpreters  "  put  it  to 
strange  uses.  By  that  Book,  even  without  the  aid  of  the  new 
covenant  Scriptures,  the  chosen  people  of  old  —  between  whose 
circumstances  and  their  own  our  Fathers  found  many  parallels 
—  had  been  trained  in  a  wilderness,  and  fashioned  into  a  com 
monwealth.  They  intended  to  repeat  the  process  under  fairer- 
auspices.  With  a  stern  and  heroic  spirit,  in  awful  sincerity, 
earnest  men  and  gentle  women,  made  calmly  resolute  for  their 
own  share  in  it,  set  themselves  to  the  work,  after  counting  its 
cost  so  wisely  that  they  met  with  nothing  which  they  had  not 
anticipated.  Many  died  of  the  earliest  hardships,  in  full  faith 
of  a  blessed  success  to  be  realized  by  their  posterity.  And  these 
were  accounted  happy  by  their  survivors,  who  looked  on  their 
fresh  wilderness  graves  as  the  seed-bed  of  a  glorious  harvest. 

It  is  not  strange,  though  it  is  in  many  respects  sad,  that  so 
many  of  those  high^souled  exiles  should  have  had  to  meet  the 
vexations  of  all  the  stages  of  a  gradual,  but  finally  a  complete, 
disappointment  in  the  thwarting  and  failure  of  their  experiment. 
1  They  could  not  create  a  State  out  of  a  church;  for  a  State^rew 
up  which  would  not  come  into  their  church,  and  which  lory 
would  not  have  allowed  to  come  into  it.  They  could  not 
administer  a  civil  government  by  Biblical  statutes;  for  those 
statutes  have  God,  not  man,  for  their  administrator.  That 
liberty  of  conscience  which  they  themselves,  and  for  themselves, 
had  put  under  restraining  subjection  to  their  own  covenants  and 
religious  limitations,  was  irresistibly  exercised  by  some  among 

succession   of   new-comers.      They 


wer-a_made    dreadfully   uncomfortable    by   dissentients   and    in 
truders   and  interlopers,  —  honest   and    pure   persons,    men   and 


women,  but  eccentric,  fanciful,  and  strong-headed,  with  strange 
conceits,  theories,  and  notions  of  their  own.  For  a  time,  the 
magistrates  and  ministers  tried  to  standby  their  first  purpose 
and  aim,  at  all  cost.  Their  legislation  was  pursued  into  the 
most  minute  details.  It  was  inquisitorial,  severe,  fearless,  and 
without  respect  of  persons.  They  maintained  their  proprietary 
rights,  and  clung  to  their  Theocratical  experiment  against  all 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  65 

intruders  and  heretics.  Their  Court  (Sept.  4,  1639),  in  passing  a 
law  against  "  the  common  custom  of  drinking  one  to  another," 
as  an  occasion  of  much  waste  and  sin,  held  it  to  be  a  duty 
to  prevent  such  wickedness,  —  "especially  in  plantations  of 
churches  and  common  weales,  wherein  the  least  known  evils  are 
not  to  be  tolerated  by  such  as  are  bound  by  solemn  covenant  to 
walk  by  the  rule  of  God's  word  in  all  their  conversation."  1 

Whatever  the  expectations  of  the  leading  colonists  may  have 
been,  before  they  crossed  the  seas,  of  the  relations  of  dependence 
and  oversight  which  would  continue  to  exist  between  their 
remote  home  and  England,  and  however  vague  or  definite  may 
have  been  their  intentions  of  setting  up  for  themselves,  as  a 
matter  of  fact  thejj3id_jftrid  themselves  charged  with  the  whole 
responsibility  of  administering  a  government.  1  Tfaeir  necessities 
and  emergencies  settled  that  point  for  them.  England  gave 
them  no  help  whatever^  and  all  her  attempted  commissions 
about  their  affairs  were  regarded  and  rejected,  or  resisted,  as 
mischievous  interference.  The  home  government  could  not 
have  wisely  disposed  the  affairs  of  this  colony  at  any  time 
during  its  charter  administration.  For  a  large  part  of  that  term 
England  itself  was  in  a  distracted  condition,  through  its  own 
civil  war  ;  and  its  intermedd  lings  here  would  but  have  caused 
confusion  and  increased  dissension. 


full  responsibility  of  legislative^  .judicial,  and  executive  offices, 
the  authorities  developed  their  own  scheme,  and  worked  toward 
the  realizing  of  their  TheocracyT\  Their  experiment  proved 
impracticable.  Its  weak  points  answered  exactly  to  the  kind  of 
assaults  and  the  sort  of  weapons  which  were  tried  against  it  by 
their  own  more  restless  spirits  and  by  their  ingenious  tormenters. 
In  one  aspect  of  the  case,  and  in  some  moods  of  our  minds,  in 
these  days  we  cannot  but  smile  as  if  we  found  fun  in  reading 
some  of  their  experiences  ;  for  there  certainly  is  an  element  and 
aspect  of  the  ludicrous  in  some  of  them.  It  seems  as  if  all  the 
ingenuities  and  whimsies,  all  the  crotchets  and  extravagancies, 
of  crude  and  conscientious  enthusiasm  and  fanaticism,  were 
conjured  up  at  the  time,  and  for  the  occasion  of  teasing  and 
worrying  the  poor  sheep  who  had  sought  this  fold.  The  tor- 

1  Court  Kecords,  vol.  i.  p.  271. 
5 


66  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

menting  troublers  of  the  new  Israel  were  of  every  style  and 
pattern,  of  every  variety  of  sting  and  venom.  One  who  in  our 
dog-clay  season  is  trying  to  do  diligent  work  with  eye,  hand,  and 
mind  engaged,  and  who  finds  himself  made  the  sport  and  prey 
of  flies,  gnats,  mosquitoes,  and  all  summer  bugs,  may  realize 
what  was  often  the  vexed  and  harried  experience  of  our  Fathers, 
as,  from  over  the  seas,  or  out  of  the  woods,  or  in  one  of  their 
own  cottages  or  congregations,  some  "  extraordinary,"  "  exorbi 
tant,"  or  "  unsavory  spirit,"  in  man  or  woman,  presented  itself, 
—  to  indicate  a  swarm  in  persistency  and  variety. 

Beside  the  bufferings  and  distractions  caused  by  strangers  or 
troublers  among  themselves,  the  authorities  had  soon  to  meet 
with  many  serious  perplexities  arising  from  the  practical  wor1>~ 
ing  of  their  own  theory.  Thus,  as  the  Court  had  made  church- 
membership  the  condition  of  eligibility  to  the  franchise,  they 
found  it  essential  for  them  to  have  a  word  to  say  about  the 
rightful  constitution  of  churches  whose  prerogative  it  was  to 
decide  the  terms  of  admission  for  members.  ,  To  prevent  vari 
ance  and  undue  privilege  or  license  in  this  matter,  the  independ 
ence  of  the  churches  was  brought  under  risk.  In  1634—5,  we 
find  the  following  on  the  Records  :  1  — 

"  This  Court  doth  intreate  of  the  elders  and  brethren  of  every  church 
within  this  jurisdiction,  that  they  will  consult  and  advise  of  one  uniform 
order  of  discipline  in  the  churches  agreeable  to  the  Scriptures,  and  then 
to  consider  how  far  the  magistrates  are  bound  to  interpose  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  that  uniformity  and  peace  of  the  churches." 

In  the  next  year,  the  Court  subjected  the  mode  of  gathering1 

_nf  ._foft  ™nJMg.tps  and 


refused  the  franchise  to  members  of  churches  otherwise  gathered.^ 
The  "  New-English  Canaan"  was  tBfe  jesting  titleTwhfch  the 
roguish  Thomas  Morton  gave  to  the  site  of  the  Puritan  State  ; 
showing  how  well  he  divined  the  nature  of  the  enterprise  which 
he  tried  to  vex  and  thwart.  The  experiment  of  the  Fathers  of 
Massachusetts  to  form  and  administer  a  Commonwealth,  in 
which  all  civil  affairs  should  be  disposed  by  members  of  one  order 
of  churches,  is  classed  by  us  now  among  the  visionary  fancies 

l  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  168.  2  Vol.  i.  pp.  142-3. 


FOUNDERS   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  67 

which  have  beguiled  good  but  weak  men,  and  which,  on  the  trial, 
have  exposed  their  folly  and  error.  So  we  judge ;  and  then,  too 
often,  condemn.  Those  covenanted  legislators  are  not  to  be  held 
accountable  for  the  logical  or  the  practical  consequences  which 
followed  from  their  scheme  when  put  on  trial.  They  were  not 
bound  to  foresee  these  consequences,  nor  to  be  ready  to  abandon, 
or  even  to  re-adjust,  their  theory,  as  its  experimental  working 
brought  perplexities  and  unlooked-for  resistance.  They  .weie_ 
right,  after  having  recognized  what  their  faith  and  piety  held  to 
be  a  constraining  duty  which  would  consecrate  and  bless  them 
in  the  doing  of  it,  to  throw  their  souls  into  its  discharge,  and 
defy  and  resist  all  oppositio^ 

The  quotations  which  have  been  so  abundantly  made  in  the 
preceding  pages,  from  the  authentic  writings  of  the  leading  foun 
ders  of  Massachusetts,  and  from  their  legislative  records,  are 
alike  confidential  and  public  testimonies  of  the  design  which 
prompted  them.  It  was  not  that  they  intended,  however  con- 

sp.ip.nt.innsTy    fVipy    mtgVif    lia-iro    /irmo    ar^  in    nfirfafrrif^  a  +ii<»fyy  ^ 

form  of  government  of  their  own  devising,  for  ends  of  civil  and 
re^g^sjreedo.gi.v ,  AlLmQUye" taHo  th^lrf  Tl^yTarT  fe'Tf  "j'f  s  Tjjr 
fluencer  was  overruled  by  a  profound  conviction,  the  result  of 
their  religious  training  and  belief,  that  the  Bible  offered  them  an 
already  perfected  model  anQ^^inde^or  a  Commonwealth ;  and 
that  they  were  at  liberty  only,  or -could  only  safely  use  their  liberty, 
in  following  that  model.  Many  psigrs  more,  from  diaries,  iHters, 
and  iiioi'fi 'jJUUlii'  duuilfflUlliy,  Ullght  be  covered  with  confirmatory 
and  illustrative  matter,  similar  to  what  has  already  been  given. 

But  there  is  a  record  of  such  marked  and  emphatic  significance 
in  its  bearing  upon  the  same  point,  that  it  must  not  be  passed 
over  unnoticed. 

Massachusetts  alone,  of  all  its  sister  colonies  of  New  England, 
with  positive  avowal,  and  with  consistent  efforts  and  measures 
to  realize  it,  aimed  to  establish  a  Bible  Commonwealth.  .  The 
colonies  of  Plymouth,  Connecticut,  and  New  Haven,  approxi 
mated  to  that  aim,  but  fell  short  of  it  in  actual  legislation 
for  it. 

What,  then,  was  more  natural  than  that  Massachusetts  should 
have  attempted  to  induce  her  sister  colonies  to  follow  her  own 
example,  in  making  the  church  estate  the  condition  of  citizen- 


68  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

ship  ?  This  attempt  she  did  make  in  all  sincerity,  though  with 
but  partial  success.  As  early  as  1638,  at  a  meeting  held  at  Cam 
bridge,  Connecticut  had  proposed  a  confederation  with  the 
other  three  colonies.  The  proposition,  failing  of  effect  at  the 
time,  was  held  in  mind,  till  it  resulted  in  a  union  of  the  four  in 
1643,  by  formal  articles,  providing  for  regular  annual  meetings 
of  two  commissioners  for  each  of  them,  appointed  by  their 
several  General  Courts.  The  preamble  of  the  Confederacy  begins 
thus :  - 

"  Whereas,  we  all  came  into  these  parts  of  America  with  one  and  the 
same  end  and  aim,  namely,  to  advance  the  Kingdome  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  to  enjoy  the  liberties  of  the  Gospell  in  puritie,  with 
peace,"  &c. 

The  object  of  the  Union  was  chiefly  for  purposes  of  mutual 
aid  in  defence  against  the  Indians.  They  entered  into  "  a  firme 
and  perpetuall  league  of  friendship  and  amytie,  for  offence  and 
defence,  mutuall  advice  and  succour,  upon  all  just  occasions, 
both  for  preserving  and  propagating  the  truth  and  liberties  of 
the  Gospell,  and  for  their  own  mutuall  safety  and  welfare." 

After  the  organization  had  become  familiar,  and  the  commis 
sioners,  instructed  by  the  General  Courts  which  they  severally 
represented,  and  to  whom  they  were  to  report  the  advisory  meas 
ures  recommended  in  their  Congress,  had  experience  of  what 
business  might  properly  come  before  them,  we  find  the  following 
proposition  on  their  Records,  at  a  meeting  held  in  due  order  of 
place  and  time,  at  New  Haven,  in  September,  1646.  It  bears  on 
its  face  that  it  came  from  Massachusetts  :  — 

"  Upon  serious  consideration  of  the  spreading  nature  of  Error,  the  dan 
gerous  growth  and  effects  thereof  in  other  places,  and  particularly  now 
the  purity  and  power  both  of  religion  and  of  civill  order  is  already  much 
corrupted,  if  not  wholy  lost  in  a  parte  of  New  England,  by  a  licentious 
liberty  graunted  and  setled ;  whereby  many  casting  off  the  rule  of  the 
word,  professe  and  practise  what  is  good  in  their  owne  eyes :  And  upon 
information  of  what  petitions  have  beene  lately  putt  in  some  of  the  Colon 
ies  against  the  good  and  straite  wayes  of  Christ,  both  in  the  Churches, 
and  in  the  Comon  Wealth,  the  Commissioners  remembering  that  those 
Colonies  for  themselves  and  their  posteritie  did  enter  into  this  firme  and 
perpetuall  league,  —  as  for  other  respects  so  for  mutuall  advise  that  the 
truth  and  liberties  of  the  Gospell  might  be  preserved  and  propagated, 


FOUNDERS  OP  THE  MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  69 

thought  it  their  duty  seriously  to  comend  it  to  the  care  and  consideration 
of  each  Genera.ll  Corte  within  these  United  Colonies,  that  as  they  have 
laid  theire  foundations  and  measured  the  temple  of  God,  the  worship  and 
worshippers  by  that  straight  Reed  God  hath  putt  into  their  hands,  soe 
they  would  walke  on  and  build  up  (all  discouragements  and  difficulties 
notwithstandinge)  with  an  undaunted  heart  and  unwearied  hand,  accord- 
iiiwjtojhej same  rules  and  patternes.  That  a  due  watch  be  kept  and  con 
tinued  at  the  doores  of  God's  house,  that  none  be  admitted  as  members  of 
the  body  of  Christ,  but  such  as  hold  foorth  effectuall  callinge  and  thereby 
union- with  Christ  the  head,  and  that  those  whome  Christ  hath  received, 
and  enter  by  an  expresse  covenant  to  attend  and  observe  the  lawes  and 
dutyes  of  that  spirituall  Corporation,  that  Babtisme,  the  scale  of  the  Cove 
nant,  be  administred  onely  to  such  members  and  their  ymediate  seed,  that 
Anabaptisme,  familisme,  Antinomianisjiie,  and-geuerally  all  errors  of  like 
nature,  which  oppose,  undermine  and  slight  either  the  scriptures,  the  Sab- 
both,  or  other  ordinance  of  God,  and  bring  in  and  cry  up  unwarrantable 
Revelations,  inventions  of  men,  or  any  carnall  liberty,  under  a  deceitfull 
colloure  of  liberty  of  conscience,  may  be  seasonably  and  duely  supprest, 
though  they  wfeh  as  much  forbearance  and  respect  may  be  had  of  tender 
consciences  seeking  light  as  may  stand  with  the  purity  of  religion  and 
peace  of  the  Churches." 

The  record  adds:  — 

"The  Commissioners  of  Plymouth  desire  further  consideration  con- 
cerninge  this  advise  given  to  the  generall  Corts."  1 

Massachusetts  had  been  consistent  with  herself  in  pressing  her 
Bible  theory  of  State  upon  her  sister  colonies,  but  she  could  not 
legislate  for  them. 

Xo\v  look  at,  examine,  that  aim  or  scheme  or  experiment  of 
the  first  colonists,  as  it  stands  in  the  line  of  history,  and  holds 
a  place,  certainly  not  a  mean  one,  among  the  enterprises  of 
men.  It  was  one  of  a  hundred  schemes,  visions,  lures,  or  devices 
of  men,  which  have  floated  before  their  busy  and  quickened 
fancies,  and  engaged  their  whole  souls,  their  worldly  means,  their 
lives  and  heroism  in  attempts  to  realize  them.  The  possible 
nobleness  of  humanity  has  often  gone  into  some  of  the  dreami 
est  and  most  impracticable  of  these  schemes.  The  Fathers  of 
Massachusetts  had  doubtless  read  the  "  Republic  "  of  Plato,  and 
the  "  Utopia "  of  Sir  Thomas  More.(  But  they  had  also  read 

1  From  the  Plymouth  Copy  of  the  Records  of  Commissioners. 


70  THE   AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE 

their  Bible  as  they  had  read  no  other  book.  And  if  they  had 
seen  the  Book  float  down  from  the  sky,  and  had  received  it  by  a 
clutch  of  the  hand  from  out  of  a  mountain  cloud,  they  could  not 
have  given  to  it  a  more  revering  love,  trust,  and  divine  authority 
than  they  did  yield  to  it.  It  suggested  to  them  the  conception 
and  experiment  of  a  Christian  state,  a  commonwealth  in  which 
human  legislation  should  be  patterned  from  the  divim?. 

The  conditions  of  time,  opinion,  opportunity,  and  persons,  for 
the  practical  trial  of  a  J5iblicai  Uommonwealth,  were  as  loilows : 

1.  A  religiously  earnest  period,  characterized  by  an  implicit 
faith  in  the  divine  authority,  and  in  the  literal,  inspired  infalli 
bility  of  the  "whole  JtJible ;  ana  a  mode  of  valuing  it,  and  a  sense 
of  subjection  to  its  teachings  conformed  to  that  view  of  it. 

2.  A  class  of  men  and  women  to  whom  that  belief  should  be 
a  bond  of  sympathy  and  fellowship. 

3.  Unfavorable  or  antagonistic  circumstances  forbidding  the 
practical   trial  of  an  ecclesiastical  commonwealth  where  they 
were  then  living. 

4.  The  opening  of  a  new  field  remote  and  sheltered  in  the 
distance,  with  vested  rights  secured  lor  its  occupancy  and  juris 
diction. 

I  have  used  by  preference  the  term  a  "  Biblical  Common 
wealth  : "  I  might  have  confined  myself  to  the  use  of  the  term 
"  Theocracy,"  which  has  been  quoted  more  than  once,  as  used  by 
the  Fathers  as  applicable  to  their  form  of  government.  And  it  is 
a ppli<>abl^  if  by  it,  we  mean  the  direct  recognition  of  a  "JJivine" 
Headship  to  a  state.  Our  Fathers  used  it  in  that  legitimate  sense 
of  the  term  which  subordinates  all  views  of  expediency,  custom, 
and  human  prerogative  to  a  profound  sense  of  subjection  to  a 
Divine  Ruler,  and  an  obligation  to  accept  and  to  follow  wfiat  18 
believed  to  bo  an  intelligible  revelation  of  His  will,  as  the  basis 
and  ffuide  of  legislation. 

That  conception  was  sure,  in  its  turn  and  season,  to  come  to 
practical  trial  in  this  world.  It  stood  entered  on  the  docket  of 
time,  awaiting  human  agents,  fit  field  and  opportunity,  with  the 
prime  condition  of  faith  and  self-renunciation  in  man  and 
woman.  Then  it  would  be  entitled  to  a  trial. 

Glance  with  a  single  Backward  thought,  over  the  long  and 
varied,  generally  interesting,  but  often  melancholy,  series  of  the 


FOUNDERS   OP  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY.  71 

visionary  fancies,  the  social  and  political  theories,  by  which  men 
and  women  with  only  good  aims  have  sought  to  organize  and 
govern  themselves.  We  have  had  the  schemes  of  St.  Simon,  of 
Fourier,  and  of  Owen.  You  may  have  read  Mr.  Hepworth 
Dixon's  sketch  of  some  of  the  experiments  on  trial  among  us, 
in  Shakerism  and  Communism.  And  it  hardly  becomes  an  age 
and  an  indulgence,  which,  like  our  own,  tolerate  the  filthy  ex 
periment  of  Mormonism,  to  be  very  critical  in  judging  about 
any  of  the  past  theories  which  have  failed.  There  have  been 
many  experiments  of  a  purely  religious  sort,  tried  by  men  and 
women  devoutly  sincere  and  high-minded,  which  had  far  less  of 
grandeur,  nobleness,  and  practical  feasibility  to  offer  as  motives, 
than  had  that  of  our  Fathers.  Among  the  fashionings  of  the 
millennium,  and  the  plannings  for  it,  theirs,  certainly,  was  not  one 
which  will  unfavorably  compare  with  others.  They  took  care 
to  guard  against  the  extravagancies  and  the  follies  of  the  Fifth 
Monarchy  men ;  and  they  had  a  sober,  and  never  a  fanatic, 
spirit.  Their  experiment,  as  I  have  said,  was  sure  of,  and  was 
entitled  to  have,  its  time  and  trial.  We  may  criticise  and  even 
ridicule  it,  if  we  choose,  on  its  weak  side.  But  there  was 
an  august  grandeur,  an  attractive  and  spell-like  power  in  it, 
a  beckoning  promise  of  some  unspeakable  blessing  with  it, 
which  would  be  certain  to  give  it  an  enthralling  influence  over 
devout  and  high-souled  men  and  women.  Its  time  for  trial  came 
at  the  most  earnestly  religious  age  which  has  as  yet  been 
chronicled  in  the  history  of  the  church. 

It  is  from  the  failure  and  from  the  success  of  great  visions  and 
schemes,  that  men  have  learned  all  their  practical  and  political 
wisdom.  We  will  not  undertake  to  cast  the  proportions  of 
success  or  failure  in  the  original  enterprise,  which  is  represented 
now  by  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts. 

Puritanism,  in  the  strictly  Bible  theory  and  embodiment  of  it, 
as  accepted  by  our  Fathers,  had  a  thoroughly  sincere  disciple- 
ship,  and  a  hearty  earnestness  of  purpose  engaged  for  it,  only 
for  a  little  more  than  half  a  century  and  for  two  generations. 
During  that  period,  and  for  those  full  believers  of  it,  it  was 
transiently  consistent,  because  it  was  parallel  with,  and  at  the 
level  of,  the  degree  of  intelligence  which  had  been  reached  in 
some  portions  of  Christendom,  —  especially  in  England,  —  for  it 


72  THE  AIMS  AND  PURPOSES  OP  THE 

never  had  the  same  sway  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  Under 
those  temporary  conditions,  Puritanism  secured  the  devout  con 
fidence  of  noble  and  eminent  men,  statesmen,  jurists,  and 
scholars  ;  and  of  such  votaries  as  in  those  times  there  were,  of 
science  and  philosophy,  as  well  as  the  profoundest  reverence  of 
meek  women,  sturdy  yeomen,  and  craftsmen  in  ordinary  life. 
But  Puritanism  could  not  outlast  its  own  age,  nor  hold  its  un- 
quesfioned  control  beyond  tne  umiiaTions  01  time  and  genera 


tions,  except  by  living  off^STRfflTOHySfRTOg^^pleTh  secluded 
places  not  re  cCci^  iTguTcnnc^^£jLidiu.t5ci.  Knowledge. 
It  started  with  an  estimate  ot,  anTnTwa^oPtBrng,  the  whole 
Bible,  which  have  been  discredited  by  mote  JBteiiUftWUM,  llHlCpend- 

ence  of  thinking,  critical,  scholarly,  and  scientific  culture,  and  the 
exercise  of  a  higher  grade  of  what  we  call  common  sense  in 
common  people.  But  the  theory  and  faith  on  which  our 
Fathers  proceeded,  though  steadily  impaired,  modified,  and 
diminished,  have  only  gradually  yielded,  only  a  little  for  each 
generation,  —  retaining  enough  of  inherited  or  traditional  in 
fluence  to  avert  the  catastrophe  of  a  complete  revolutionary 
repudiation  at  any  one  time.  The  spirit  and  shadow,  the  tone 
and  savor  of  Puritanism,  still  remain  and  have  influence  in  our 
State.  Doubtless,  there  are  members  of  our  present  Legislature, 
certainly  there  are  constituents  of  some  of  them,  who  in  heart 
and  mind  are  persuaded,  that  it  would  be  well  if  we  could 
restore  Puritan  legislation  in  our  franchise,  in  our  churches,  in 
household  management  and  discipline,  in  Sabbath  laws,  in 
many  social  customs  and  indulgences,  against  dissipation  and 
gambling.  But  the  dream  is  of  the  past. 

No  reader  can  engage  his  mind,  candidly  and  seriously,  upon 
the  original  papers  left  to  us  by  the  Fathers  of  our  colony, 
without  being  impressed  with  the  thought,  that  they  subjected 
themselves  to  all  the  sacrifices  involved  in  their  enterprise,  bore 
willingly  all  the  sharp  inflictions  of  suffering  incident  to  it,  and 
cheered  themselves  with  great  religious  hopes  of  its  issues,  under 
the  quickening  impulse  of  a  belief  that  they  were  putting  under 
practical  trial  the  loftiest  aim  which  had  ever  inspired  high- 
minded  and  devout  men. 

True,  it  is  unspeakably  to  our  advantage  and  enjoyment  in 
the  freedom  and  cheerfulness  of  life,  that  we  have  been  released 


FOUNDERS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  COLONY.         73 

from  the  severe  sway  of  what  we  call,  conventionally,  the  rigidness 
and  superstition  of  Puritan  institutions  and  ideas.  We  may% 
however,  question  the  fairness  of  describing  as  the  outgrowth  of 
Puritanism,  what  a  more  just  view  of  facts  recognizes  as  a  gen 
eral  and  comprehensive  progress  and  enlightenment,  by  many 
agencies  of  advance  on  the  past. 

Yet  are  we  sure  that  the  change,  as  all  relaxing  and  liberaliz 
ing,  is  pure  gain  to  us,  and  no  loss  ?  A  large  and  liberal-minded 
man  might  easily  defend  the  position,  that  there  were  elements 
and  usages  of  Puritanism,  which  we  are  none  the  wiser,  none 
the  better,  none  the  freer,  none  the  happier,  for  having  left  them. 
Our  domestic,  civil,  and  religious  life ;  our  amusements,  vices, 
a'nd*  wicked  haunts,  —  all  testify  that  our  Fathers  had  some 
virtues  and  safeguards  which  we  have  not. 

Meanwhile,  not  with  alarming  and  dangerous  reaction  of 
revolution  or  anarchy,  but  slowly  and  safely  relaxing  its  sway  in 
our  Commonwealth,  eight  generations  born  and  nurtured  here, 
and  many  bands  of  new  exiles,  have  realized  that  Puritanism  has 
prepared  for  them  a  most  pleasant  heritage.  So  that  this  noble 
and  honored  State  has  a  repute  of  which  all  living  in  it,  who 
are  not  justly  proud,  will  not  increase  its  credit  by  staying  here, 
but  had  better  avail  themselves  of  their  liberty  by  moving  out 
of  it  without  process. 

The  Commonwealth  in  this  our  present  age  of  it  has  these 
four  conspicuous  honors  :  — 

1.  Its  money  bonds  are  set  at  a  higher  premium  than  are  any 
American  paper  obligations  in  the  marts  of  the  world. 

2.  Its  educational  system,  and  the  high  and  general  culture 
produced  by  it,  give  us  the  pre-eminent  advantages  and  safe 
guards  of  intelligence. 

3.  Its  charitable,  benevolent,  and  reformatory  institutions  are 
most  numerous,  munificent,  and  humane.     The  State  is  treated 
by  the  whole  Union,  as  a  bank  for  gathering,  and  a  deep  free 
pocket  for  dispensing,  all  manner  of  pecuniary  gifts ;  and  those 
who  are  for  leaving  us  out  in  the  cold,  strangely  enough,  have 
to  come  here  to  get  warm. 

4.  There  are  in  this  Commonwealth  more  peaceful  and  happy 
homes,  palatial  in  our  towns  and  cities,  and  simple  and  frugal  in 
our  sheltered  valleys  and  on  our  hill-sides,  filled  with  those  who 


74          AIMS   AND   PURPOSES   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   COLONY. 

are  favored  beyond  any  people  on  the  earth  in  an  opportunity 
to  make  the  best  thing  possible  out  of  life. 

I  have  said  nothing  to  rebut,  or  even  as  recognizing,  the 
charge  against  our  Fathers  of  having  a  worldly  outlook  for 
trade  and  profit.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  they  were  in  the  body 
and  found  it  necessary  to  keep  themselves  alive,  —  to  be  fed, 
housed,  and  clothed,  as  human  beings  always  do,  wherever  they 
may  be,  and  whatever  experiment  they  have  on  trial.  Some  of 
them  did  keep  alive.  After  stern  and  varied  hardships,  a  few  of 
them  gathered  a  comfortable  substance.  But  as  to  the  profit  of 
their  undertaking,  nearly  the  whole  of  that  has  come  to  the 
generations  between  them  and  our  own,  —  most  largely  to  our 
own.  It  would  not  have  been  agreeable  or  desirable,  for  such 
persons  as  we  are,  to  have  lived  with  our  Fathers;  but  it  is 
an  inestimable  privilege  to  us  to  live  after  them,  in  their  own 
places. 


TBEATMENT 


OF 


INTRUDERS    AND    DISSENTIENTS 


BY  THE 


FOUNDERS    OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 


BY    REV.    GEORGE    E.    ELLIS,    D.D. 


TREATMENT 


OF 


INTRUDERS    AND    DISSENTIENTS 


FOUNDERS    OF    MASSACHUSETTS. 


A  CORRECT  view  of  the  aims  and  purposes  of  the  Founders 
•*••*•  of  Massachusetts  carries  with  it  a  certain  consistent  course 
of  treatment,  which  might  be  expected  to  be  visited  upon  all 
who  should  interfere  with  them,  or  cause  them  trouble.  Their 
project  was  in  itself  of  such  a  nature,  that  it  would  very  easily 
afford  a  test  for  distinguishing  between  a  friend  and  an  enemy, 
—  between  measures,  intentions,  and  even  opinions,  which  would 
tend  to  advance  it,  and  those  which  would  thwart  and  Wreck  it. 
Once  committed  to  their  enterprise,  and  holding  in  their  hands  a 
royal  instrument,  which  they  regarded  as  securing  to  them  the 
territorial  rights  and  jurisdiction  necessary  for  a  practical  trial 
of  it,  they  felt  that  it  would  be  their  own  fault  or  folly  if  it 
failed  in  that  trial.  To  keep  possession  of  their  charter  was 
their  first  security.  For  this  they  trusted  to  law,  to  policy,  to 
shrewd  management;  and  to  a  final  reinforcement  from  obsti 
nacy,  and  something  that  looks  like  cunning, — the  last,  how 
ever,  brought  into  use  only  in  opposition  to  cunning.  There 
were  in  their  view,  or  construction,  three  privileges  secured  to 
them  by  that  charter,  which  were  their  main  reliance  :  — 

First,  An  absolute  jurisdiction  over  the  soil  included  in  their 
patent ; 

Second,  The  right  to  define  and  impose  terms  on  which  alone 
new  members  should  be  admitted  into  their  company ; 


78  TREATMENT   OF  INTRUDERS  AND   DISSENTIENTS 

Third,  The  right,  "  for  their  special  defence  and  safety,  to  in- 
counter,  expulse,  repel,  and  resist,  all  such  person  and  persons,  as 
shall  at  any  time  attempt  the  destruction,  invasion,  or  annoy 
ance  to  the  plantation  or  its  inhabitants." 

No  doubt  they  had  some  intelligent  apprehensions  of  the  nature 
and  sources  of  the  hostility  from  parties  and  individuals  which 
they  would  have  to  deal  with.  They  had  reason  to  believe  that 
their  hold  upon  their  charter  would  always  be  under  peril,  from 
their  enemies  residing  in  England,  and  from  those  smarting  under 
their  discipline  carrying  ill  reports  from  hence.  These  they 
would  need  to  circumvent  in  one  way.  Their  internal  troubles 
they  would  meet  in  another  way. 

Only  the  actual  reading  of  the  early  volumes  of  the  original 
Records  of  the  colony,  page  by  page,  carefully  and  intelligently 
too,  can  put  their  case  before  us,  as  they  might  claim  that  we 
should  look  at  it.  And  we  should  need  to  begin  with  them  at 
their  own  beginning.  Their  enterprise  in  colonizing  had  been 
preceded  by  a  series  of  like  undertakings,  which  had  proved  costly 
and  disastrous  failures.  Unfit  men,  and  insufficient  or  unblessed 
purposes  or  aims,  had  brought  those  enterprises  into  painful 
discomfiture,  and  stained  them  with  reproach.  If  a  new  one 
was  to  be  undertaken,  it  was  with  cautions  and  warnings 
learned  from  those  which  had  been  blasted.  The  excellent  and 
revered  John  White,  of  the  English  Dorchester,  the  most  effect 
ive  promoter  of  the  Massachusetts  colony,  in  his  "  Planters' 
Plea,"  1630,  had  well  defined  the  sort  of  persons  who  alone 
might  hope  to  prosper  in  such  an  enterprise.  He  wrote  :  — 

"  The  persons  chosen  out  for  this  employment,  ought  to  be  willing,  con 
stant,  industrious,  obedient,  frugal,  lovers  of  the  common  good,  or,  at 
least,  such  as  may  be  easily  wrought  to  this  temper ;  considering  that 
works  of  this  nature  try  the  undertakers  with  many  difficulties,  and  easily 
discourage  minds  of  base  and  weak  temper." 

With  equal  force  and  frankness,  he  describes  the  sort  of  persons 
not  wished  for,  as  not  suitable :  — 

"Men  nourished  up  in  idleness,  unconstant,  and  affecting  novelties, 
unwilling,  stubborn,  inclined  to  faction,  covetous,  luxurious,  prodigal,  and 
generally  men  habituated  to  any  gross  evil,  are  no  fit  members  of  a 
colony." 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  79 

We  have  one  letter  by  Governor  Cradock,  and  two  from  the 
company  in  England,  addressed  to  Endicott,  as  their  representa 
tive  here  before  the  charter  was  brought  over.  The  explicit 
directions  which  they  contain  indicate  the  measures  which  the 
authorities  themselves  would  pursue  when  established  here. 
Endicott  is  told,  "  that  the  propagating  of  the  Gospel  is  the 
thing  we  do  profess,  above  all,  to  be  our  aim  in  settling  this 
plantation."  He  is  instructed  to  press  a  rigid  restriction  upon 
the  sort  of  persons  allowed  to  reside  here ;  and  "  that  none  be 
partakers  but  such  as  be  peaceable  men ;  and  of  honest  life  and 
conversation,  —  and  desirous  to  live  amongst  us  and  conform 
themselves  to  good  order  and  government."  The  company  had 
yielded  to  the  desire  of  the  Rev.  Ralph  Smith  to  come  over, 
"  before  we  understood  his  difference  of  judgment  in  some  things 
from  our  ministers."  The  order  to  Endicott  is,  "  that,  unless  he 
will  be  conformable  to  our  government,  you  suffer  him  not  to 
remain  within  the  limits  of  our  grant."  Explicit  directions  also 
are  given  him  for  settling  all  single  persons  and  servants  in 
families,  that  they  may  have  part  in  morning  and  evening 
devotions.1 

Such  hints  as  these  prepare  us  for  what  we  find  when  the 
government  was  established  here.  An  agreement  had  been 
made  with  their  ministers  in  England.  The  first  business  of 
the  first  Court,  held  on  this  soil,  is  entered  thus :  "  Imprimis,  it 
was  propounded  how  the  ministers  should  be  maintained.  It 
was  ordered  that  houses  should  be  built  for  them,  with  con 
venient  speed,  at  the  public  charge ; "  and  salaries  paid  in  money 
and  in  produce.  Following  on  with  the  Records  from  that  page, 
we  find  the  development  of  their  purpose  to  establish  here  a 
Bible  Commonwealth  formed  out  of  a  church, — the  legislators 
of  which,  should  be  bound  by  solemn  covenant,  as  professed 
Christians  pledged  to  one  sacred  design.  We  find  in  those 
records,  too,  a  series  of  legislative  acts,  and  of  cases  of  enforce 
ment  of  them,  which  are  now  pronounced  absurd,  arbitrary, 
intolerant,  and  even  of  merciless  cruelty.  These  are  candidly 
entered,  never  apologized  for,  but  always  justified  by  those 
responsible  for  them.  From  these  and  other  original  records,  we 

1  Col.  Rec.,  i.  386-397. 


80  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

have  a  fair  and  full  presentment  of  the  materials  for  dealing  with 
this  subject,  —  The  Treatment  visited  by  the  authorities  of  the 
colony  of  Massachusetts  upon  the  Intruders  who  came  into  their 
jurisdiction,  and  upon  the  Dissentients  who,  from  time  to  time, 
individually,  or  in  company,  started  forth  among  themselves. 
Readers  generally,  among  us,  know  that  that  treatment  was 
severe.  The  occasions  and  reasons  they  do  not  generally  know. 
And  even  though  it  may  be  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  so,  yet 
let  me  distinctly  and  emphatically  avow,  that  I  am  not  to  argue 
for  the  abstract  justice  or  fairness  of  the  course  pursued  by  the 
authorities  of  Massachusetts ;  nor  to  attempt  to  vindicate  it  as 
necessary ;  nor  to  palliate  its  severity ;  nor  even  to  assert  its 
wisdom  or  expediency  under  the  circumstances.  If  a  faithful 
exposition  of  the  facts  shall  avail  in  either  of  these  directions, 
those  who  now  stand  charged  with  folly,  harshness,  and  cruelty, 
will,  so  far,  have  the  benefit  in  judgment.  I  am  not  undertaking 
a  vindication  of  those  Fathers,  in  the  sense  of  an  approval  or 
justification  either  of  their  religio-political  theory,  or  of  their 
measures  for  a  practical  trial  of  it.  I  hold  myself  simply  to  the 
obligation  to  make  a  fair  statement  of  the  facts  o£  the  case; 
to  set  what  is  to  us  an  historic  past,  in  the  light,  —  or  under  the 
darkness,  if  such  it  were,  —  of  the  times  when  it  was  living, 
present  experience;  to  expound  the  views,  the  actions,  and,  if 
possible,  also  the  motives  of  those  who,  in  the  exercise  of  what 
they  held  to  be  rightful  authority,  as  under  covenant  and  oath, 
did  what  they  believed  to  be  their  duty  to  themselves  in  doing 
as  they  did  towards  others. 

We  must  first  put  ourselves  into  the  light  or  —  if,  as  sug 
gested,  it  was  —  under  the  darkness  of  those  times.  The  basis 
of  fellowship,  of  accord,  and  of  legislation  in  Massachusetts,  was 
different  from  that  of  either  of  her  sister  colonies  of  New  Eng 
land.  That  stern  and  strong  form  of  faith,  founded  on  a  rever 
ential  regard  for  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  which  was  held  here, 
was  also  substantially  held  by  the  leading  spirits  of  the  other 
colonies.  But  it  was  more  especially  wrought  in  with  the 
spirit,  the  purposes,  and  the  measures,  which  had  sway  in 
Massachusetts ;  and  the  peculiar  working  and  shaping  of  that 
belief  here  account  for  all  the  peculiarities  of  our  early  history. 
As  we  read  that  history,  we  are  at  times  surprised  at  the  kind 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  81 

and  degree  of  unanimity,  of  accordance  in  opinion  and  purpose, 
of  so  many  persons  of  strong  and  really  independent  spirits. 
Why  did  they  not  fall  out  oftener  and  more  threateningly 
among  themselves  ?  What  was  it  that  kept  enough  of  them  of 
one  mind  and  of  one  will  for  the  ends  of  legislation  and  admin 
istration  ?  It  was  simply  and  solely  their  common  aim,  founded 
upon  their  common  faith ;  their  idolizing,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
Bible  ;  their  way  of  thinking  about  it,  interpreting  it,  and  using 
it.  This  common  religious  sentiment  and  purpose —  restraining 
an  indulgence  of  what  we  mean  by  liberty  of  conscience  —  held 
them  firmly  in  sympathy  and  mutual  confidence.  To  a  certain 
extent,  and  that  a  large  extent,  it  repressed  and  checked  the 
tendency  to  diversity  of  judgment.  That  diversity  of  judgment, 
individualism,  opinionativeness,  was  the  most  marked  charac 
teristic  of  the  age  that  was  then  opening,  and  even  of  the  class 
of  persons  with  whom  they  had  many  strong  affinities.  Their 
common  faith  discouraged,  averted,  much  of  what  would  have 
been  utterly  fatal  to  their  enterprise.  Had  they  allowed  indi 
vidualism,  or  tolerated  any  of  the  crotchets  of  eccentric  and 
independent  speculation,  their  scheme  would  have  come  to  an 
end  before  it  had  had  a  beginning.  There  were  many  occasions  ! 
and  emergencies — such  were  furnished  indeed  in  every  case 
of  their  dealing  writh  opposers  and  dissentients  —  in  which 
variance  of  judgment  among  themselves  would  have  fatally 
discomfited  them.  The  strength  of  their  one  bond  of  harmony 
enabled  them  to  deal  as  with  one  mind  with  all  who  differed 
with  them. 

This  suggestion  brings  us  directly  to  the  point  from  which  we 
have  to  start.  The  especial  dread  of  the  Fathers  of  Massa 
chusetts  was  of  all  individuality  and  eccentricity  of  opinion. 
They  had  an  intense — by  us  an  unappreciable  —  horror  and 
distrust  of  those  who  professed  to  be  favored  with  private  inter 
pretations,  revelations,  and  inspirations.  And,  strangely  enough, 
it  so  proved,  that  nearly  every  one  of  their  troublers — Anti- 
nomians,  Gortonists,  and  Quakers  —  laid  claim  to  those  oracular 
qualities  and  gifts.  The  epithets  of  description  and  reproach 
attached  to  the  names  of  such  intruders  and  dissentients,  carry 
with  them  a  key  to  the  history.  They  were  "  exorbitant "  per 
sons,  "  heady,"  "  fantastic,"  "  blasphemous,"  "  malignant,"  "  un- 

6 


82  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

savory  spirits,"  &c.  The  decisive  blow  which  fell  on  the  head 
of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  on  her  trial  before  the  court,  came  from  the 
testimony  of  a  reverend  fellow-passenger  with  her  on  her  way 
over  the  sea,  that,  in  the  ship,  "  she  had  vented  her  revelations  " 
about  some  calamity  that  was  coming  on  the  country.  Gorton's 
mystic  creed  was  to  the  authorities  the  very  hyperbole  and 
quintessence  of  crazy  enthusiasm.  The  Quaker's  "  inward 
light "  and  "  testimony-bearing  by  the  Spirit "  was  utter  blas 
phemy  to  the  pious  ears  that  heard  it.  It  is  a  very  curious  fact, 
that  not  a  single  one  of  those  men  or  women,  who  were  treated 
with  the  severest  or  most  cruel  penalties  by  the  authorities  of 
Massachusetts,  was  of  immoral  character  or  of  impure  life ;  not 
one  of  them.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  especially  such  as  we 
should  regard  as  blameless,  even  excellent  and  exemplary,  in 
their  moral  character  and  conduct,  —  honest,  truth-speaking, 
kind,  and  tender-hearted.  But  erratic  individuality  of  opinion 
or  interpretation,  or  a  claim  to  a  "  revelation "  of  their  own, 
would  bring  the  best  and  purest  of  them  under  judgment.  In 
one  point  of  view,  this  whole  series  of  the  troublers  of  the  New 
England  Israel  gives  us  a  most  interesting  and  even  fascinating 
study  of  characters.  They  were  such  as  make  especial  favorites 
for  the  mystic,  the  pietist,  and  the  transcendentalist.  They 
would  have  made  an  admirable  stock  for  "  Brook  Farm." 
They  did  make  a  most  miscellaneous  and  heterogeneous  stock 
for  the  early  Rhode-Island  and  Providence  plantations;  "With 
the  single  exception  of  that  sad  scapegrace  Captain  Underbill,1 
even  the  Antinomians  were  all  free  of  moral  reproach.  But 
they  were  not  wanted,  and  they  could  not  be  tolerated  in  Mas 
sachusetts.  "  Transcendentalism "  was  wasted  on  our  Fathers. 
It  was  a  thing  of  which  they  would  very  soon  have  had  too 
much,  if  they  had  admitted  any  of  it.  We  must  get  ourselves 
as  far  away  as  possible  from  the  atmosphere  and  liberalism  of 
this  modern  Boston,  with  its  free  invitation  and  its  large  hos- 


1  Underbill,  though  very  serviceable  in  bis  military  capacity,  was  a  man  of  a 
shaky  morality  and  a  cloudy  theology.  He  was  "  convented  "  on  grave  suspicions  of 
impurity,  but  explained  his  conviction  that  he  was  one  of  the  elect,  by  saying,  that, 
"  having  lain  under  a  spirit  of  bondage  and  a  legal  way  five  years,  he  could  get  no 
assurance  till  the  Spirit  set  home  an  absolute  promise  of  free  grace,  as  he  was  taking 
the  moderate  use  of  the  creature  called  tobacco." —  Winthrop's  Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  270. 


BY   THE    FOUNDERS   OP   MASSACHUSETTS.  83 

pitality  for  all  novelties  and  individualisms,  —  its  churches, 
synagogues,  cathedrals,  halls  and  theatres  for  preaching,  —  its 
conventions,  fraternities,  and  woman's  club,  —  if  we  would  have 
before  us  the  Boston  that  once  was.  Did  it  enter  into  the 
imagination  of  its  first  occupants  to  conceive  what  a  posterity 
they  should  be  responsible  for  ? 

Their  dread  of  all  persons  professedly  illuminated  by  special 
revelations  was  by  no  means  the  result  of  a  merely  imaginary 
apprehension  of  a  possible  evil  that  might  befall  them.  I  have 
affirmed  that  it  might  with  truth  be  alleged,  and  with  full  evi 
dence,  that  the  Fathers  of  Massachusetts,  instead  of  coming 
hither  to  provide  for  liberty  of  conscience,  left  their  old  home 
to  keep  themselves  clear  of  the  workings  and  effects  of  the 
license,  lawlessness,  and  mischief,  which  had  already  begun  to 
threaten  a  wild  indulgence  in  England.  Any  one  who  is  well 
read  in  the  history  of  England,  either  in  its  capital  or  in  its  by- 
places,  during  the  period  just  following  the  planting  of  this 
colony,  needs  not  to  be  told  that  that  period,  of  all  the  Chris 
tian  ages,  was  most  rife  in  religious  fancies,  speculations, 
eccentricities,  and  frenzies.  Some  persons,  without  this  knowl 
edge,  take  for  granted  that  sectarianism,  individualism,  and 
free  thinking,  with  all  their  developments,  moderate  or  extrava 
gant,  healthful  or  harmful,  are  the  especial  products  of  our 
modern  age.  They  are  strangely  and  egregiously  mistaken.  It 
is  just  as  difficult  to  devise  a  new  heresy  or  a  new  fancy  or  a 
new  oddity  in  religious  belief  or  practice,  as  it  is  to  discover 
a  new  truth.  There  is  no  opinion,  conceit,  or  notion  in  such 
matters,  recognized  among  us,  which  had  not  its  living  belief  and 
avowal  at  the  period  of  which  I  am  speaking. 

Before  me  lie  three  quaint  and  time-worn  old  books,  very 
communicative  witnesses  as  to  what  I  arn  now  saying.  They 
were  written  and  published  after  the  time  when  our  General 
Court  began  to  legislate  on  this  soil,  but  their  contents  cover 
materials  that  were  familiar  and  notorious.  I  will  copy  and 
read  their  titles,  which,  I  think,  will  serve  the  purpose,  without 
asking  you  to  read  their  contents. 

1.  "  Gangroena:  or  A  Catalogue  and  Discovery  of  many  of  the  Errors, 
Heresies,  Blasphemies,  and  pernicious  practices  of  the  Sectaries  of  this 


84-  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

time,  vented  and  acted  in  England  in  these  four  last  years,  &c.  By 
Thomas  Edwards,  Minister  of  the  Gospel." 

2.  "  Ileresiography,  or  a  Description  of  the  Heretics  and  Sectaries 
sprung  up  in  these  latter  times,  &c.  By  Ephraim  Pagitt,  late  Minister  of 
St.  Edmonds." 

3.  "  The  Dippers  Dipt.  Or  the  Anabaptists  Duck'd  and  Plunged  over 
Head  and  Eares,  at  a  Disputation  in  Southwark,  &c.  By  Daniel  Featley, 
D.D." 

This  was  Milton's  "  year  of  sects  and  schisms." 
A  precious  medley  do  these  books,  and  others  like  them, 
"  adorned  with  cuts,"  present  us,  of  the  workings  of  individual 
ism  and  sectarism  in  England  then.  And  there  were  on  the 
stage  of  life  earnest  and  fantastic  characters,  answering  to 
each  belief  and  opinion,  each  notion,  scruple,  and  extravagance, 
by  garb,  behavior,  habit,  and  speech.  There  were  then  in 
England  men  who  wore  long  hair  and  women  who  wore  short 
hair;  the  bearded  and  the  shaven;  the  dandy  and  the  drab- 
coated  ;  those  who  said  Thee  and  Thou,  and  those  who  kept  on 
their  hats,  where  others  took  them  off,  before  Fox  became  the 
apostle  of  such. 

To  assume,  as  some  carelessly  do,  that  when  Roger  Williams 
and  others  asserted  the  right  and  safety  of  liberty  of  conscience, 
they  announced  a  novelty  that  was  alarming,  because  it  was  a 
novelty,  to  the  authorities  of  Massachusetts,  is  a  great  error.  Our 
Fathers  were  fully  informed  as  to  what  it  was,  what  it  meant ; 
and  they  were  familiar  with  such  results  as  it  wrought  in  their 
day.  They  knew  it  well,  and  what  must  come  of  it;  and  they 
did  not  like  it ;  rather,  they  feared  and  hated  it.  They  did  not 
mean  to  live  where  it  was  indulged ;  and,  in  the  full  exercise  of 
their  intelligence  and  prudence,  they  resolved  not  to  tolerate  it 
among  them.  They  identified  freedom  of  conscience  only  with 
the  objectionable  and  mischievous  results  which  carne  of  it.  They 
plight  have  met  all  around  them  in  England,  in  city  and  country, 
all  sorts  of  wild,  crude,  extravagant,  and  fanatical  spirits.  They 
had  reason  to  fear  that  many  whimsical  and  factious  persons 
would  come  over  hither,  expecting  to  find  an  unsettled  state  of 
things,  in  which  they  would  have  the  freest  range  for  their  eccen 
tricities.  They  were  prepared  to  stand  on  the  defensive. 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.  85 

Now  we  turn  back  again  to  the  Colony  Records,  without  an 
actual  perusal  of  which,  page  by  page,  as  I  have  said,  will 
the  history,  as  it  is  apt  to  be  written,  not  stand  before  us  as  truth. 
On  those  pages  we  are  impressed  at  once  by  the  high-handed, 
resolute,  straightforward,  and  systematic  way,  —  never  faltering, 
halting,  doubting,  or  justifying  themselves,  —  in  which  the  authori 
ties  proceeded  to  put  the  soil  and  its  inhabitants  under  their 
mastery.  They  proceeded  on  the  cairn,  full  assurance,  that  it 
was  for  them  to  begin  with  a  clear,  or  a  cleared,  field.  Exactly 
as  one  who,  having  purchased  a  large  freehold,  on  which  he  con 
templates  improvements,  runs  his  eye  over  it  to  see  what  nui 
sances  he  must  remove ;  the  stumps  to  be  grubbed  up,  the  holes 
in  the  fences,  and  so  forth.  The  colonial  proprietors  by  charter 
found  here  some  chance  and  irregular  residents ;  "  old  planters," 
and  others,  who,  with  a  mysterious  history  behind  them  in 
England,  —  rogues,  adventurers,  or  romantic  spirits  loving  solitude 
and  the  wilderness,  —  had  occupied  many  of  the  headlands  and 
promontories  of  our  Bay.  These  had  to  be  packed  off,  sent 
home  to  England,  or  brought  under  the  authority  and  discipline 
of  the  colonists.  Some  of  these,  getting  before  the  Privy  Coun 
cil  with  the  tale  of  their  grievances,  and  with  ill  reports  of  what 
was  going  on  here,  originated  that  suspicion  and  jealousy 
towards  the  colony  which  brought  its  charter  and  authorities 
under  threats  and  peril.  The  only  effect  which  such  complaints 
had  here  was,  to  make  legislation  and  oversight  more  rigid  and 
watchful,  and  the  dealing  with  mischief-breeders  more  sharp 
and  stern.  Never  in  a  single  instance  were  the  authorities  inti 
midated  or  thwarted.  All  interlopers  here,  all  roving  characters, 
seeking  the  delights  of  a  proximate  return  to  the  state  of 
nature,  were  at  once  looked  after.  The  roisterous  and  reckless 
Morton,  of  Merry  Mount,  has  the  honor  of  corning  first  under 
their  discipline.  At  the  very  first  Court  held  in  the  Bay,  it  was 
u  Ordered,  that  Morton,  of  Mount  Woolison,  should  presently 
be  sent  for  by  process."  They  had  him  in  hand  in  less  than  a 
fortnight,  set  him  in  the  "bilbowes,"  and  then  sent  him  to  Eng 
land,  confiscating  his  goods  to  make  satisfaction  to  Indians  whom 
he  had  wronged,  and  then  burning  his  shanty  as  a  scene  of 
wicked  revelry.  In  a  few  months  after,  six  persons  have  a 
passage  home  provided  for  them  against  their  will ;  the  all-suffi- 


86  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

cient  reason  being  given  that  they  are  "  persons  unmeete  to 
inhabit  here."  At  the  same  time,  as  one  of  two  prisoners  to  be 
sent  to  England,  is  that  dark  and  mysterious  character,  Sir  Chris 
topher  Gardiner,  "  an  undoubted  Papist,"  professedly  a  Knight  of 
the  Sepulchre,  sorely  charged  as  having  temporary  and  contem 
porary  wives,  two  in  England,  and  a  certain  Italian  woman 
here.  On  the  same  date,  the  first  quack  was  treated  in  a  way 
which  reminds  us  how  different  the  law  was  then  from  what  it 
is  now. 

"  Nich.  Knopp  is  fined  five  pounds  for  taking  upon  him  to  cure  the 
scurvey  by  a  water  of  noe  worth  nor  value,  which  he  sold  at  a  very  deare 
rate,  to  be  imprisoned  till  he  pay  his  fine,  or  give  security  for  it,  or  els  to 
be  whipped,  and  shall  be  liable  to  any  man's  action  of  whome  he  hath 
received  money  for  the  said  water." 1 

Again, — 

"  Thomas  Gray  is  enjoined  under  the  penalty  of  ten  pounds  to  attend 
on  the  Court  in  person  this  day  three  weeks,  to  answer  to  divers  things 
objected  against  him,  and  to  remove  himself  out  of  the  limits  of  this 
patent,"  before  six  months,  (p.  77.) 

Another  unaccounted-for  old  planter,  who  seems  to  have  had 
dangerous  relations  with  the  Indians,  was  Thomas  Walford,  of 
Charlestown. 

He  was,  May,  1631,  "fined  forty  shillings,  and  is  enjoined,  hee  and 
his  wife,  to  depart  out  of  the  limits  of  this  pattent,  before  the  20th  day  of 
October  nexte,  under  pain  of  confiscation  of  his  goods,  for  his  contempt 
of  authority,  and  confronting  officers,"  &c. 

"  Capt.  John  Stone  for  his  outrage  comitted  in  confronting  authority, 
abusing  Mr.  Ludlowe,  both  in  words  and  behavour,  assalting  him  and 
calling  him  a  just  ass  &c.  is  fined  100  pds,  and  prohibited  coming  within 
this  pattent  without  leave  from  the  Government  under  the  penalty  of 
death."  (p.  108.) 

Again,— 

"  Mr.  Thomas  Makepeace,  because  of  his  novile  disposition,  was  in 
formed  we  were  weary  of  him  unlesse  hee  reforme."  (p.  252.) 

Mr.  Blaxton,  an  old  planter  on  the  peninsula  of  Boston,  a 
mysterious  man,  shrewdly  foreseeing  what  sort  of  a  sway  was 

1  Kecords,  vol.  i.  p.  83. 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  87 

about  to  be  established  here,  quietly  took  himself  off,  selling  out 
to  the  settlers  his  own  squatter  rights  and  improvements. 

While  the  soil  was  thus  cleared  of  intruders,  and  the  proprie 
tors  asserted  their  rights  of  jurisdiction  over  strangers,  they  were 
none  the  less  resolute  in  putting  their  own  magistrates  and  ser 
vants  under  rigid  discipline.  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  and  others 
of  the  highest  among  them,  were  fined  for  absence  or  tardiness  at 
the  Court-meetings,  or  for  irregularities  of  conduct.  It  is  hard  to 
read  the  Records  without  feeling  the  motions  for  many  a  smile, 
or  even  for  more  marked  demonstrations.  So  rigid  was  the 
inquisition,  so  petty  were  many  of  the  offences  punished,  and  so 
severe  were  the  penalties,  that  we  find  our  smiles  repressed.  But 
those  stern  and  grim  legislators  understood  themselves.  They 
knew  what  were  their  aims,  and  the  caution,  severity,  and  reso 
luteness  requisite  to  realize  them,  or,  at  least,  to  guard  the  trial 
of  them.  Before  we  hear  of  their  making  stocks  or  whipping 
posts,  such  conveniences  seem  to  have  been  all  handy  for  use  as 
subjects  were  sentenced  to  them. 

It  would  seem  from  the  following  order  of  the  Court,  that  the 
use  of  the  Boston  stocks  was  very  fittingly  inaugurated  :  — 

"  Edward  Palmer,  for  his  extortion,  takeing  1!  13"  7d.  for  the  plank 
and  wood-work  of  Boston  stocks,  is  fined  five  pounds,  and  censured  to  bee 
set  an  hour  in  the  stocks.  This  fine  was  remitted  to  10s."  l 

"  Robert  Shorthose,  for  swearing  by  the  blude  of  God,  was  sentenced 
to  have  his  tongue  put  into  a  cleft  stick,  and  to  stand  so  by  the  space  of 
halfe  an  houre." 

"  Elizabeth,  the  wife  of  Thomas  Apelgate,  was  censured  to  stand  with 
her  tongue  in  a  cleft  stick,  for  swearing,  raileing,  and  revileing." 

"  Edward  Woodley,  for  attempting  a  rape,  swearing,  and  breaking  into 
a  house,  was  censured  to  be  severely  whipt  30  stripes,  a  yeares  imprison 
ment,  and  kept  to  hard  labour  with  course  dyot,  and  to  weare  a  coller  of 
yron."  2 

"  Capt.  Lovell  was  admonished  to  take  heede  of  light  carriage."  8 

A  specimen  of  the  severity  of  their  discipline  on  a  grievous 
offender,  a  servant  on  Governor  Cradock's  farm,  is  as  follows  : 
At  the  Court,  June  14,  1631. 

"  It  is  ordered  that  Philip  Ratliffe  shall  be  whipped,  have  his  eares  cut 
off,  fined  40  pounds,  and  banished  out  of  the  limitts  of  this  jurisdiction, 

l  Eecords,  vol.  i.  p.  260.  2  id.  p.  177.  3  Id.  p.  193. 


88  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

for  uttering  malicious  and  scandalous  speeches  against  the  government," 
&c. 

Again,  at  the  Court,  in  March,  1638,  — 

"Mr.  Ambros  Marten,  for  calling  the  Church  covenant  a  stinking 
carrion  and  a  human  invention,  and  saying  he  wondered  at  God's  pa 
tience,  feared  it  would  end  in  the  sharpe,  and  said  the  ministers  did 
dethrone  Christ,  and  set  up  themselves ;  he  was  fined  10  pds.  and  coun 
selled  to  go  to  Mr.  Mather  to  be  instructed  by  him." 

These  last  two  extracts  are  very  significant  to  us  of  a  fact,  evi 
dence  of  which  is  strewn  all  over  the  Records,  that  the  authorities 
were  especially  stern,  unflinching,  and  unrelenting,  in  dealing 
with  those  whose  offence  was  a  contumacious  trifling  with  the 
dignity  of  the  government,  or  an  irreverent  reproaching  of  their 
church  covenant.  Security  and  harmony,  respect  and  submis 
sion,  as  to  both  those  vitally  fundamental  matters,  held  at  stake 
the  prosperity  or  the  absolute  ruin  of  the  enterprise. 

Yet  it  would  be  doing  harsh  injustice  to  the  early  legislators 
of  Massachusetts,  to  recognize  in  their  records  only  a  stern 
spirit.  Gentleness  and  mercy  show  many  pleasing  and  impres 
sive  manifestations  even  there.  The  reader  is  constantly  re 
minded  of  the  same  characteristic  in  the  Jewish  code,  in  which 
severity  is  set  in  contrast  with  mildness.  The  tender  regard  for 
the  widowed  and  the  fatherless;  the  privileges  secured  to  the 
gleaners,  as  illustrated  in  the  beautiful  pastoral  in  the  Book  of 
Ruth  ;  consideration  for  the  impoverished  and  the  honest  debtor  ; 
the  distinction  between  disciplinary  punishment  and  inhuman 
vengeance,  —  are  admirably  paralleled  between  the  Old-Testa- 
rnent  code  and  that  of  Massachusetts.  Our  legislators  stood  for 
absolute  equity  between  man  and  man.  They  protected  the 
unfortunate  and  the  wronged.  They  provided  for  the  fair  settle 
ment  of  estates,  and  the  adjustment  of  private  controversies. 
Their  legislation  was  rigidly  impersonal  and  sternly  impartial. 
They  remitted  fines  on  confession  and  submission.  As  has 
been  already  said,  the  ever-upright  Winthrop  and  the  other 
associates  in  the  chief  magistracies,  stood  in  turn  at  the  same 
bar  where  offenders  and  culprits  were  held  to  judgment.  Here, 
certainly,  is  an  act  of  even-handed  justice,  done  by  the  Court,  in 
September,  1631 :  — 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  89 

"  It  is  ordered  that  Josias  Plastowe  shall  (for  stealeing  four  basketts  of 
corne  from  the  Indians)  returne  them  eight  basketts  againe,  be  fined  five 
pounds,  and  hereafter,  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  Josias,  and  not  Mr.,  as 
formerly  hee  used  to  be."  l 

Some  distinction  of  difference  is  certainly  to  be  recognized  by 
us,  for  it  was  recognized  by  the  authorities,  in  their  mode  of 
treating,  respectively,  intruders  or  strangers  who  caused  them 
annoyance,  and  the  dissentients  from  their  opinions,  measures, 
or  policy,  members  of  their  own  company  and  churches.  The 
harshness  which  in  either  case  is  rightly  charged  upon  the 
authorities,  and  the  injustice  and  cruelty  which,  with  less  ground 
of  reason,  are  also  ascribed  to  them,  can  be  fairly  judged  of  by 
us  only  when  we  keep  in  mind  the  distinction  between  the  two 
classes  of  troublers.  As  regards  those  who  were  not  proprietors, 
members  of  the  company,  or  freemen,  but  chance  residents, 
strangers,  interlopers,  adventurers,  or  visitors,  the  authorities  felt 
that  their  rights  of  self-protection  and  privacy,  with  security 
from  molestation,  were  as  plain  and  sufficient  as  are  those  of 
any  householder  among  us  on  his  own  premises,  or  those  of  any 
joint-stock  company  in  managing  its  corporate  affairs.  They 
did  not  feel  themselves  bound  in  any  case,  beyond  their  own 
inclinations,  to  give  a  reason  for  keeping  out,  warning  off,  or 
expelling,  such  as  came  under  the  description  just  named.  It 
was  enough  if  any  such  person  was  thought  "  unmeete  to  inhabit 
here."  If  he  was  not  wanted,  he  must  stay  away,  or  he  might 
be  sent  away.  If  he  did  any  thing  wrong  while  here,  he  might 
be  fined,  whipped,  or  otherwise  punished  first,  and  then  be 
ordered  and  helped  to  take  himself  off.  So  the  authorities 
insisted  their  charter  gave  them  a  right  to  judge  and  act  in 
every  case  for  themselves ;  and  so  they  knew  it  was  wise  and 
necessary  for  them  to  proceed,  if  they  meant  that  their  pro 
foundly  sincere  and  exacting  religious  enterprise  should  have  a 
fair  trial.  The  issue  stood  thus  between  the  two  parties,  —  the 
housekeepers  and  the  visitants,  the  proprietors  and  the  outsiders. 
Here  were  the  owners  of  certain  property,  and  proprietary  rights 
of  local  government  and  jurisdiction.  They  understood  each 
other,  and  were  solemnly  covenanted  with  each  other,  in  a  pur- 

1  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  92. 


90  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

pose  which  had  brought  them  hither,  at  their  own  charges, 
furnished  with  the  means  of  self-protection.  They  must  stay 
here,  identifying  themselves  and  their  fortunes  with  their  experi 
ment.  They  had  parted  with  their  homes  and  possessions  in 
the  old  world;  and,  if  they  could  not  make  and  keep  such  here, 
they  would  be  vagabonds  on  the  earth.1 

The  other  party  to  the  issue  were  those  who  came  unasked, 
for  curiosity,  adventure,  or  caprice.  They  did  not  intend  to  stay 
except  for  private  ends  of  their  own.  They  had  no  property 
here.  They  did  not  love  the  air  of  the  place,  nor  its  society. 
Very  many  of  them  were  possessed  of  the  whimsies  and 
crotchets  which  the  colonists  intended  to  be  clear  of,  as  one 
reason  for  coming  hither.  Others  of  those  intruders  had  the 
"  prophetical  spirit,"  which  classed  them  as  nuisances  of  the 
most  offensive  character.  It  certainly  was  easier  and  more 
reasonable  for  the  visitors  to  leave,  than  for  the  householders  to 
break  up  their  establishment,  or  to  live  in  a  constant  ferment  and 
dissension.  And  it  is  to  be  frankly  and  distinctly  admitted,  that 
not  a  single  such  intruder,  however  summarily  he  was  dealt 
with  here,  would  have  escaped  legal  process  and  punishment 
under  like  circumstances  in  England.  Any  one  who  will 
search  curiously  into  the  vagrant  laws  of  the  mother  country, 
and  mark  w^hat  a  careful  watch  was  kept,  and  what  discipline 
was  visited  upon  the  unthrifty  and  those  who  had  no  visible 
means  of  a  livelihood,  will  find  abundant  evidence  that  our 
Fathers  followed  precedents ;  though,  it  must  be  owned,  they  did 
not  care  for  such  support. 

The  case  was  somewhat  different  when  dissent  and  variance 
sprang  up  within  their  own  fellowship  in  state  or  church.  The 
grievance  was  a  deep  and  a  sore  one,  in  each  instance  of  it, 
when  those  who  had  the  rights  of  freemen,  and  the  sanctity  of 

1  In  a  "  Declaration  "  issued  by  the  Court,  in  1G59,  in  the  course  of  the  proceed 
ings  against  the  Quakers,  this  ground  is  assumed :  "  There  is  no  man  that  is  pos 
sessed  of  house  or  land,  wherein  he  hath  just  title  and  property  as  his  own,  but  he 
would  count  it  unreasonably  injurious  that  another  who  had  no  authority  thereto 
should  intrude  and  enter  into  his  house,  without  the  owner's  consent."  The  argu 
ment  proceeds,  that,  if  the  intruder  in  such  a  case  should  be  killed  by  the  house 
holder,  the  latter  will  be  guiltless ;  and  if  an  individual  may  thus  defend  his  private 
rights,  how  much  more  the  authorities  of  a  government.  —  Miscellaneous  MSS.  in 
the  State  House. 


BY  THE  FOUNDERS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.  91 

the  covenant  of  church-membership  raised  diversities  of  judg 
ment  or  variances  of  purpose,  and  so  caused  distraction.  It 
was  evident  in  all  such  cases,  that  the  umpireship,  the  appeal, 
would  be  found  in  referring  to  the  common  pledge  of  aim  and 
enterprise  which  had  bound  the  proprietors  together,  and  to  the 
seal  which  they  had  set  upon  their  pledge  in  their  church  vows 
and  in  their  civil  oath.  It  was  perfectly  fair,  as  they  \vere  held 
themselves,  that  tj^ey  should  hold  each  other  to  the  most  strin 
gent  terms  of  their  joint  and  common  obligations.  It  was  to  be 
taken  for  granted,  that  each  and  every  one  of  them  was  con 
cerned  to  avert  the  failure  of  their  enterprise;  and  if  that  was 
risked  by  any  variance  of  opinion  in  civil  or  religious  matters, 
such  variance  was  to  be  held  in  check  before  it  resulted  in 
sedition  or  dangerous  heresy. 

Roger  Williams  was  the  first  conspicuous  subject  of  what  is 
called  the  intolerance,  the  severity,  aye,  the  cruelty,  of  the 
authorities  of  Massachusetts.  Fact  and  fiction,  or  great  mis 
apprehension  and  misrepresentation,  are  about  equally  mingled 
in  the  popular  reading  of  his  story.  An  enterprise  to  which  he 
fortuitously  committed  himself,  helped  alike  by  the  sort  of  dis 
comfitures  and  compulsory  straits  which  it  encountered,  as  well 
as  by  any  deliberate  and  intentional  purpose  of  his  own  thrown 
into  it,  was  crowned  with  the  same  success  as  was  reached  by 
Massachusetts  through  another  process.  His  purity  of  char 
acter,  his  integrity,  perseverance,  and  magnanimity,  and  his 
lengthened  life,  give  a  personal  and  historic  interest  to  his 
career.  But  none  the  less  was  he  the  occasion  of  much  trouble 
here.  The  quarrel  which  he  had  on  this  soil  was  of  his  own 
originating.  If  he  had  had  his  way  a  grievous  wrong  would 
have  been  visited  on  the  colonists.  He  found  occasion,  indeed, 
to  reconsider,  with  maturer  wisdom,  the  course  he  had  pursued 
here,  when  the  adoption  or  imitation  of  it  by  some  of  his  own 
associates  in  Rhode  Island  led  him  to  ask  sympathy  and  aid 
from  Massachusetts. 

Sir  William  Martin,  a  warm  friend  of  the  colony  and  of  Gov 
ernor  Winthrop,  in  a  letter  to  the  latter  from  England  (in  March, 
1636),  after  Williams  had  come  under  censure,  wrote  as  follows :  — 

"I  am  sorry  to  hear  of  Mr.  Williams'  separation  from  you.  His 
former  good  affections  to  you  and  the  plantations  were  well  known  to  me, 


92  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

and  make  me  wonder  now  at  his  proceedings.  I  have  wrote  to  him 
effectually  to  submit  to  better  judgements,  and  especially  to  those  whom 
formerly  he  reverenced  and  admired ;  at  least,  to  keep  the  bond  of  peace 
inviolable.  This  hath  been  always  my  advice ;  and  nothing  conduceth 
more  to  the  good  of  plantations.  I  pray  show  him  what  lawful  favor  you 
can,  which  may  stand  with  the  common  good.  He  is  passionate  and  pre 
cipitate,  which  may  transport  him  into  error;  but  I  hope  his  integrity 
and  good  intentions  will  bring  him  at  last  into  the  way  of  truth,  and  con 
firm  him  therein.  In  the  mean  time,  I  pray  God  to^ive  him  a  right  use 
of  this  affliction."  1 

This  kindly  and  impartial  estimate  of  Williams  was  made  by 
one  who  evidently  knew  him  well.  It  corresponds  at  every 
point  with  the  view  which  a  fair-minded  reader  would  take  of 
his  case  as  history. 

Williams  came  here  in  1631  as  a  young,  ardent,  and  strongly 
self-willed  man,  at  his  own  prompting.  He  was  not  a  proprie 
tor  in  the  company,  and  never  became  a  freeman  of  it.  He  was 
a  rigid  separatist  from  the  English  Church,  in  which  he  had 
been  a  minister ;  while  the  authorities  of  Massachusetts  were  not 
so  rigid,  certainly  not  in  avowal,  as  Williams  wished  them  to 
be.  He  was  invited,  on  his  arrival,  as  he  long  after  affirmed, 
though  there  is  no  other  testimony  to  the  fact,  to  become  the 
teacher  of  the  Boston  Church ;  which  he  says  he  refused  to  do, 
because  its  members  would  not  humble  themselves  for  their 
former  communion  with  the  English  Church,  and  renounce  it. 
He  served  a  short  time  in  the  ministry  at  Salem,  though  the 
Court  remonstrated  at  his  being  put  into  that  office,  both  be 
cause  of  that  severe  judgment  of  his  already  mentioned,  as 
also  because  of  an  opinion  for  which  he  stood  stoutly,  that  the 
power  of  the  magistrates  and  of  government  should  be  limited 
to  civil  affairs,  taking  no  cognizance  of  an  infraction  of  the  first 
four  commandments.  This  opinion  and  avowal  of  Williams,  of 
course  struck  a  fatal  blow  at  the  very  life  of  the  "  Theocrasie," 
which  the  Fathers  of  Massachusetts  were  establishing.  He 
made  warm  friends  in  Salem,  notwithstanding  the  restlessness 
of  his  spirit.  Yet,  for  reasons  not  known  to  us,  he  left  there 
within  a  year,  and  shared  a  more  congenial  ministry  with  the 
separatist  pastor,  Mr.  Smith,  at  Plymouth.  The  excellent  and 

l  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  106. 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS    OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  93 

gentle  Elder  Brewster,  and  the  judicious  and  even-tempered 
Governor  Bradford,  both  had  occasion  to  mark  his  hastiness  of 
spirit  and  his  "unsettled  judgment,"  though  they  loved  him. 
They  were  glad  to  have  him  go  away ;  and  on  his  return  to 
Salem,  in  1633,  they  addressed  a  word  of  caution  on  his  account 
to  his  old  friends.  While  he  was  at  Plymouth,  he  had  shown  to 
the  authorities  there  a  written  paper,  in  which  he  struck  another 
blow  against  the  very  fundamentals  of  any  local  government  to 
be  administered  on  this  soil,  by  denying  the  validity  of  any  rights 
conferred  by  the  patents  held  by  the  colonists.  This  treatise 
coming  to  the  knowledge  of  the  authorities  of  Massachusetts  on 
his  return  to  Salem,  he  was  summoned  to  answer  for  it.  In  the 
only  single  instance  known  to  us  in  his  life,  of  his  yielding  in 
judgment  or  pertinacity,  —  and  even  this  instance,  as  it  proved, 
was  not  to  be  permanently  an  exception,  —  he  penitently  confessed 
that  he  was  in  error,  submitted  to  the  judgment  of  the  Court,  and 
consented  that  his  treatise  should  be  burned.  The  magistrates  in 
vain  tried  to  prevent  the  Salem  Church  from  putting  him  into 
office  in  1634,  and  withheld  a  grant  of  land  from  that  town  on 
account  of  this  contumacy.  He  was  again  summoned  before 
the  Court  in  1635,  for  having  broken  his  promise  by  renewing 
his  assault  upon  the  patent,  for  calling  the  English  churches,  re 
proachfully,  anti- Christian,  and  for  denying  the  right  to  put  an 
unregenerate  person  under  oath  in  a  civil  court.  Altercation 
and  acrimony  mingled  in  this  dispute.  The  result  which  might 
reasonably  —  and  shall  we  not  say,  fairly?  —  be  expected,  came 
in  the  form  of  this  judgment,  by  the  Court,  Sept.  3,  1635 :  — 

"  Whereas,  Mr.  Roger  Williams,  one  of  the  elders  of  the  Church  of 
Salem,  hath  broached  and  divulged  divers  new  and  dangerous  opinions 
against  the  authority  of  magistrates,  as  also  writ  letters  of  defamation 
both  of  the  magistrates  and  churches  here,  and  that  before  any  conviction, 
and  yet  maintaineth  the  same  without  retraction,  it  is  therefore  ordered," 

that  he  depart  from  the  jurisdiction  within  six  weeks,  failing  of 
which  he  was  to  be  sent  away,  never  to  return  without  leave. 
On  account  of  the  season,  his  time  was  extended  to  the  next 
spring.  As  he  was  planning  for  a  settlement  on  Narragansett 
Bay,  and  continued  to  keep  Salem  in  a  ferment,  the  magistrates 
concluded  to  ship  him  for  England.  This  coming  to  his  knowl- 


94  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

edge,  he  anticipated  the  measure  by  starting  off,  as  his  last  bio 
grapher,  Mr.  R.  A.  Guild,  thinks,  in  a  shallop,  and  "  coasting 
probably  from  place  to  place  during  the  i  fourteen  weeks '  that  he 
*  was  sorely  tossed,'  and  holding  intercourse  with  the  native  tribes, 
whose  language  he  had  acquired."  1 

Less  than  a  dozen  close  friends  accompanied  Williams ;  and 
the  supporters  which  he  left  behind  him  were  reduced  to  about 
the  same  number,  when  the  nature  and  tendency  of  his  self- 
willed  course  were  fully  realized.  Much  romantic  and  sympa 
thizing  interest  has  been  connected  with  his  supposed  wilderness 
experience.  But  all  the  settlers  were  in  a  wilderness  then,  and 
it  would  have  been  a  wilder  one  than  it  was,  on  the  edge  of  our 
Bay,  if  the  disorganizing  notions  of  Williams  had  had  sway. 
There  was  no  intentional  inhumanity  in  the  treatment  of  him. 
He  might  have  gone  to  friends  in  Plymouth.  He  had  no  right 
of  residence  here,  and  his  course  was  not  such  as  to  give  him  a 
claim  on  courtesy  or  hospitality.  We  must  not  transfer  our 
sense  of  security,  our  tolerance,  and  our  familiarity  with  what 
are  to  us  harmless  extravagances,  to  our  Fathers,  and  then  won 
der  why  they  allowed  this  well-meaning  but  troublesome  man 
to  visit  upon  them  such  fears.  It  was  a  matter  of  life  or  death 
with  them. 

Cotton  Mather's  oft-quoted  saying  about  Williams,  "  that  he 
had  a  windmill  in  his  head,"  is  not  exactly  true.  A  windmill 
admits  of  being  adjusted  to  breezes  and  currents,  however  fickle; 
and  its  use  depends  upon  its  turning  these  breezes  to  account  in 
ministering  to  the  homely  necessities  of  the  body's  life.  Williams 
had  in  him  neither  mechanical  nor  moral  appliances  or  impulses 
for  seeking  any  selfish  ends.  He  was  sound  to  the  core  in  integ 
rity,  frank,  disingenuous,  and  large-hearted. 

John  Quincy  Adams  best  characterized  him  on  the  less  agree 
able  side  of  his  nature,  when  young,  by  calling  him  "  a  consci 
entious  contentious  man." 

In  the  old  age  of  a  long  life,  Williams,  mellowed  by  time,  and 
taught  patience  by  having  to  deal  in  his  own  colony  with  such 
opponents  and  troublers  as  he  himself  had  been  to  Massachu 
setts,  became,  even  more  benignantly  and  lovingly,  what  he  had 

1  Publications  of  the  Narragansett  Club.  vol.  i.  p.  32. 


BY  THE  FOUNDERS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.  95 

always  been  in  the  real  temper  of  his  heart.  His  noble  magna 
nimity  disposed  him  to  be  of  the  highest  service  to  Massachu 
setts,  in  averting  from  her  peril,  and  establishing  for  her  friendly 
relations  with  the  Indians  in  threatening  times.  He  appreciated, 
too,  the  personal  kindness  which  he  had  received  from  individuals, 
who,  in  the  exercise  of  their  authority,  had  had  to  deal  with 
him  as  a  dangerous  and  mischievous  offender.  There  is  great 
tenderness  in  the  tones  and  words  in  which,  in  his  old  age,  he 
speaks  of  "  that  ever-honored  Governor,  Mr.  Winthrop,"  who,  he 
says,  "  advised  him,  for  many  high  and  heavenly  and  public 
ends,"  to  steer  his  course  to  the  Narragansett  Bay ;  and  also  of 
the-  bounty  of  "  that  great  and  pious  soul,  Mr.  Winslow ; "  and 
of  others. 

Mr.  Williams  may  be  classed  either  among  the  intruders  or 
the  dissentients  against  whom,  as  individuals  or  as  classes,  Mas 
sachusetts  exercised  its  charter  authority  or  its  ecclesiastical  dis 
cipline.  As  one  who  came  hither  unbidden,  not  as  a  member  of 
the  company,  and  never  made  a  freeman  under  it,  he  might  be 
said  to  have  been  here  only  on  sufferance,  liable  to  be  warned 
off  at  the  pleasure  of  the  proprietors  whenever  his  presence 
should  prove  undesirable.  But  as  having  exercised  a  ministry 
in  one  of  the  regular  church  assemblies  of  the  jurisdiction,  it 
might  be  claimed  that  he  had  been  adopted  as  a  full  citizen. 
Yet  that  his  having  come  into  full  standing  in  the  colony  would 
have  made  little,  if  any,  difference  in  the  course  pursued  towards 
him,  may  fairly  be  inferred  from  the  facts  now  to  be  recognized 
in  the  dealing  with  a  large  company  of  dissentients  springing 
up  here,  alike  in  full  civil  and  church  relations.  These  are 
known  to  us  as  Antinomians,  and  as  the  followers  and  sympa 
thizers  with  Mrs.  Hutchinson. 

The  agitation  and  strife  connected  with  the  Antinomian  con 
troversy,  opened  by  Mrs.  Ann  Hutchinson,  came  dangerously 
near  to  bringing  the  fortunes  of  the  young  Massachusetts  colony 
to  a  most  disastrous  ruin.  Discord  and  division,  of  the  most 
imbittered  sort,  among  brethren,  proposing  a  recourse  to  open 
violence  with  blows  and  arms,  reached  an  advanced  stage  of 
sedition,  and  threatened  complete  anarchy.  The  peril  overhung 
at  a  time  when  the  proprietary  colonists  had  the  most  reasonable 
and  fearful  forebodings  of  the  loss  of  their  charter  by  the  inter- 


96  TREATMENT   OP   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

ference  of  a  Privy  Council  Commission,  and  also  were  waging 
war  against  the  Pequot  Indians.  Those  were  dark  and  wretched 
days  here,  for  the  colonists,  whose  all  was  at  stake.  Ominously 
enough,  too,  Mrs.  Hutchinson  arrived  here,  Sept.  18,  1634,  in 
the  vessel  which  brought  the  copy  of  that  commission.  Win- 
throp  describes  her  as  a  woman  of  a  "  ready  wit  and  bold  spirit." 
Strongly  gifted  herself,  she  had  a  gentle  and  weak  husband,  who 
was  guided  by  her.  She  had  at  home  enjoyed  no  ministrations 
so  much  as  those  of  Cotton,  and  her  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Wheel 
wright.  She  came  here  to  put  herself  again  under  the  preach 
ing  of  the  former.  On  her  passage,  she  had  raised  the  fears  of 
Symmes,  the  minister  of  Charlestown,  by  "  venting  some  private 
revelations,"  and  by  uttering  some,  strange  opinions.  By  his 
interference  and  warning,  the  admission  which  she  sought  to 
membership  of  the  Boston  Church  was  delayed,  though  after 
wards  granted.  She  had  been  here  for  two  years,  known  as  a 
ready,  kindly,  and  most  serviceable  woman,  especially  to*  her  own 
sex  in  their  straits  and  sicknesses.  But  she  anticipated  the  in 
troduction  of  "  the  woman  question  "  among  the  colonists  in  a 
more  troublesome  form  than  it  has  yet  assumed  for  us.  Joined 
by  her  brother-in-law,  who  was  also  admitted  to  the  church, 
after  those  two  quiet  years  she  soon  made  her  influence  felt  for 
trouble,  as  he  did  likewise.  There  were  no  newspapers  in  those 
days,  no  clubs,  no  daily  mails,  no  gatherings  for  friendly  inter 
course,  no  food  for  the  mind  other  than  religious  discoursing  to 
vary  the  strain  upon  one  class  of  thoughts,  or  to  occupy  the  list 
less  or  social  hours. 

Besides  the  regular  substantial  repast  of  listening  to  many 
sermons,  the  dessert  consisted  of  talking  them  over.  As  a  general 
rule,  men  are  apt  to  leave  out  something,  and  women  are  apt 
to  put  in  something,  in  their  respective  reports  and  criticisms  of 
sermons.  The  male  members  of  the  Boston  Church  had  a 
weekly  meeting,  in  which  they  discussed  the  ministrations  of 
Cotton  and  Wilson.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  organized  and  presided 
over  one,  held  soon  twice  in  a  week,  for  her  own  sex,  attended 
by  nearly  a  hundred  of  the  principal  women  on  the  peninsula 
and  in  the  neighborhood.  It  was  easy  to  foresee  what  would 
come  of  it,  through  one  so  able  and  earnest  as  herself,  even  if 
she  had  no  novel  or  disjointed  or  disproportioned  doctrine  to 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  97 

inculcate ;  which,  however,  it  proved  that  she  had.  Antinomian 
means  a  denying,  or,  at  least,  a  weakening,  of  the  obligation  to 
observe  the  moral  law,  and  to  comply  with  the  external  duties; 
to  do  the  works  associated  with  the  idea  of  internal,  spiritual 
righteousness.  It  was  a  false  or  disproportioned  construction  of 
St.  Paul's  great  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  without  the 
works  of  the  law,  —  a  doctrine  which  is  safe  only  exactly  as  St. 
Paul  defines  and  limits  it,  —  easily  misrepresented  and  exposed 
to  dangerous  application.  Its  truth  is  restricted  to  its  Divine 
relations,  and  fails  as  it  is  applied  between  man  and  man.  God 
takes  the  right  and  sincerely  earnest  heart-purpose  for  the  deed, 
and  pities  and  forgives  shortcomings.  Man  sometimes  will  do 
the  same,  but  not  always :  nor  can  man  always  be  expected  to 
do  it,  for  he  cannot  be  sure  of  a  heart-purpose,  even  if  it  would 
satisfy  him.  A  debtor  burdened  with  obligations,  with  a  sincere 
desire  to  pay,  asks  that  that  desire  be  accepted  as  payment. 
This  is  satisfactory  to  all  except  to  the  creditors.  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son  was  understood  to  teach,  that  one  who  was  graciously  justi 
fied  by  a  spiritual  assurance,  need  not  be  greatly  concerned  for 
outward  sanctification  by  works.  She  judged  and  approved,  or 
censured  and  discredited,  the  preachers  whom  she  heard,  accord 
ing  as  they  favored  or  repudiated  that  view.  Her  admirers 
accepted  her  opinions.  Winthrop  1  ascribes  to  her  "  two  danger 
ous  errors,  from  which  grew  many  branches : "  "  first,  that  the 
person  of  the  Holy  Ghost  dwells  in  a  justified  person ;  second, 
that  no  sanctification  can  help  to  evidence  to  us  our  justification." 
Word  soon  went  forth  that  Mrs.  Hutchinson  had  pronounced  in 
her  meetings,  that  Mr.  Cotton  and  her  brother-in-law  Wheel 
wright,  alone  of  all  the  ministers  in  the  colony,  were  under  "  a 
covenant  of  grace,"  the  rest  being  "  legalists,"  or  under  "  a  cov 
enant  of  works."  These  reports,  which  soon  became  more  than 
opinions,  were  blazing  brands  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
keep  from  reaching  inflammable  material.  The  matter  of  dissen 
sion  was  just  of  the  sort  to  cause  contention  of  the  most  alarm 
ing  character,  because  concerned  with  matters  already  exagger 
ated  in  their  interest,  and  entertained  in  the  community  with  a 
morbidness  of  zeal.  As  the  contention  extended  it  involved  all 

1  Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  200. 
7 


98  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

the  principal  persons  of  the  colony.  Cotton  and  all  but  five 
members  of  the  Boston  Church  —  though  one  of  these  five  was 
Winthrop,  and  another  was  Wilson  —  proved  to  be  sympa 
thizers  with  Mrs.  Hutchinson ;  while  the  ministers  and  leading 
people  outside  in  the  other  hamlets  were  strongly  opposed  to  her. 
She  had  a  partisan,  moreover,  of  transcending  influence  in  the 
young  Governor  Sir  Henry  Vane.  The  son  of  a  Privy  Coun 
cillor,  and  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State,  he  had  (not  with  the 
sympathy  of  his  father)  given  himself  to  zeal  for  the  Puritan 
form  of  religion ;  and,  by  suggestion  of  the  King,  had  a  three 
years'  leave,  of  residence  in  New  England.  He  had  come  here 
the  year  before  the  Antinomian  controversy  opened ;  and  was 
but  twenty-three  years  old.  Though  pure  and  devout,  and 
ardent  in  his  zeal,  he  had  not  then  the  practical  wisdom  for 
which  Milton  afterwards  praised  him  in  his  noble  sonnet :  - 

**  Vane,  young  in  years,  but  in  sage  counsels  old." 

So  gushing  was  the  admiration  quickened  in  the  colony 
toward  their  noble  visitor,  that  the  people  at  once  chose  him  for 
their  governor,  electing  Winthrop  as  deputy.  Vane,  sincere 
and  right  intentioned  as  he  was,  erred  in  judgment ;  and  the 
results  of  his  administration  of  a  single  year  were  so  unsatis 
factory  to  himself,  as  well  as  prejudicial  to  the  colony,  that  he 
soon  returned  to  England,  disappointed  and  under  a  cloud.1 
With  his  strong  support,  and  that  of  two  other  prominent  magis 
trates  and  of  so  overwhelming  a  majority  of  the  Boston  Church, 
Mrs.  Hutchinson  naturally  felt  emboldened.  The  other  ministers 
of  the  Bay  coming  to  Boston  to  the  Court,  took  up,  and  in  con 
ference,  heightened  the  strife.  The  Boston  Church  was  for  intro 
ducing  Wheelwright  to  office  over  them ;  and  this  design  was 
with  difficulty  frustrated.  He  then  was  invited  to  a  church  gath 
ered  at  Mount  Wollaston.  The  cloud  grew  very  dark  over  the 
colony,  as  the  terrible  war  with  the  Pequots  was  coincident  with 

1  Richard  Baxter  gives  us  an  account  of  the  trouble  which  he  had,  when  chaplain 
to  the  garrison  in  Coventry,  with  "  one  or  two  persons  who  came  among  us  from 
New  England,  of  Sir  Henry  Vanes  party,  and  one  Anabaptist  tailor."  (Life,  Part  I.) 
Baxter  unfairly  attributes  to  the  Anabaptist  party,  as  largely  composed  "  of  abun. 
dance  of  young,  transported  zealots,  and  a  medley  of  opinionists,"  the  responsibility 
of  bringing  forth  "  the  horrid  sects  of  Ranters,  Seekers,  and  Quakers,  in  the  land." 
(Life,  Part  II.) 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  99 

the  threatenings  of  sedition.  Meetings  of  ministers  and  of 
magistrates,  separately  and  jointly,  were  held ;  at  one  of  which 
the  plain-spoken  Hugh  Peter  opened  his  mind,  without  compli 
ment  of  matter  or  manner,  to  the  young  governor. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson  and  some  of  her  followers  rose  and  went  out 
of  meeting  when  Wilson  officiated.  Bitterness  and  rancor 
came  between  former  friends.  A  General  Fast  Day  was  ap 
pointed  for  pacification.  But  Wheelwright  preached  a  sermon 
of  an  exciting  character,  quoting  passages  from  the  Old  Testa 
ment  intimating  a  recourse  to  arms  and  violence.  He  was  at 
once  proceeded  with  for  sedition.  Members  of  the  Boston 
Church  presented  a  petition  in  his  behalf,  for  which  they  were 
disarmed  and  otherwise  censured.  He  himself  made  an  appeal 
to  the  King,  which  only  aggravated  his  offence ;  and  as  Win- 
throp  writes,  "  refusing  to  leave  either  the  place  or  his  public 
exercisings,  he  was  disfranchised  and  banished."  Seven  years 
afterwards,  having  lived  away,  he  reviewed  his  course  with 
regret  and  manfully  apologized  for  it  in  a  letter,  to  the  Governor 
for  the  Court,  in  which  he  said  that,  after  long  and  mature 
consideration,  he  had  found  that  the  main  point  of  difference  in 
the  controversy  about  justification  and  the  evidence  of  it  — 

"  is  not  of  that  nature  and  consequence  as  was  then  presented  to  me  in 
the  false  glass  of  Satan's  temptations  and  mine  own  distempered  passions, 
which  makes  me  unfeignedly  sorry  that  I  had  such  a  hand  in  those  sharp 
and  vehement  contentions  raised  thereabouts,  to  the  great  disturbance  of 
the  churches  of  Christ." 

He  also  regrets  the  censoriousness  of  his  sermon,  and  the 
countenance  which  he  gave  in  it  to  persons  of  corrupt  judg 
ment  ;  — 

"  and  that,  in  the  Synod,  I  used  such  unsafe  and  obscure  expressions, 
falling  from  me  as  a  man  dazzled  with  the  buffetings  of  Satan,  and  that  I 
did  appeal  [to  the  King]  from  misapprehension  of  things." 

He  "  confessed  that  herein  he  had  done  very  sinfully,  and  he 
humbly  craved  pardon."  This  letter  was  dated  at  Wells,  Sept 
10,  1643,  probably  after  he  had  learned  of  the  tragic  death  of  his 
sister.  His  sentence  of  banishment  was  revoked.1 

1  Winthrop's  Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  162. 


100  TREATMENT   OP   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

This  penitence  was  an  after  work.  He  stood  stoutly  for  his 
sister  through  her  convention  before  the  Court. 

The  civil  sentence  passed  against  her,  Nov.  2,  1637,  was  as 
follows :  — 

"  Mrs.  Hutchinson  (the  wife  of  Mr.  W?  Hutchinson)  being  convented 
for  traducing  the  ministers  and  their  ministry  in  this  country,  she  de 
clared  volentarily  her  revelations  for  her  ground,  and  that  shee  should  be 
delivred,  and  the  Court  ruined,  with  their  posterity ;  and  thereupon  was 
banished,  and  the  meane  while  comited  to  Mr.  Joseph  Weld  untill  the 
Court  shall  dispose  of  her."1 

After  she  had  been  sentenced  to  civil  banishment,  she  was 
dealt  with  by  the  Church,  and  excommunicated.  She  lost  her 
temper,  and  seemed  once  to  part  with  veracity,  on  her  trial. 
Her  "  revelations  "  were  especially  offensive.  At  one  time  "  she 
made  a  retraction  of  near  all "  the  errors  attributed  to  her,  and 
"  declared  that  it  was  just  with  God  to  leave  her  to  herself,  as 
he  had  done,  for  her  slighting  his  ordinances,  both  magistracy 
and  ministry."  A  question  involving  her  veracity  arose,  when 
she  affirmed  that  she  had  never  advanced  some  of  the  opinions 
charged  upon  her;  and  for  this,  Winthrop  says,  "the  church 
with  one  consent  cast  her  out,"  for  "  having  impudently  persisted 
in  untruth."  Many  of  her  sympathizers  at  once  fell  away.  As 
the  summing  up  of  the  strife,  seventy-six  persons  were  dis 
armed;2  two  were  disfranchised  and  fined;  two  more  were 
fined ;  eight  more  were  disfranchised ;  three  were  banished ; 
and  eleven  who  had  asked  permission  to  remove,  had  leave,  in 
the  form  of  a  limitation  of  time  within  which  they  must  do  it. 
The  more  estimable  and  considerable  of  them  apologized,  and 
were  received  back.  Those  who  did  not,  proved  troublesome  per 
sons  where  they  went.  After  various  removes  with  her  husband, 
and  a  vexed  and  troubled  life,  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  a  widow,  with 
many  children  and  grandchildren,  living  on  the  shore  opposite 

1  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  207. 

2  There  was  thought  to  be  need  of  especial  caution  in  this  measure  of  disarming. 
The  military  power  of  the  colony  had  recently  been  organized  into  three  regiments, 
carefully  officered,  and  for  the  time  admirably  well  equipped.     The  sound  of  war 
was  in  the  land  ;  and  Wheelwright,  in  his  sermon,  had  carried  the  rhetoric  of  battle 
and  violence,  from  the  Old  Testament,  as  far  as  it  was  safe  to  use  it  for  Bible 
champions.     The  authorities  reasonably  apprehended  a  direct  recourse  to  arms. 


BY  THE  FOUNDERS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.  101 

Long  Island,  was  murdered  in  the  summer  of  1643,  on  an 
inroad  of  the  Indians.  A  daughter  of  eight  years  of  age,  the 
only  survivor,  was  carried  into  captivity.  Four  years  after 
wards,  she  was  recovered  by  the  General  Court,  and  brought 
back  to  Massachusetts.  Edward  Hutchinson,  a  son  of  this 
excellent  though  perhaps  ill-balanced  woman,  had  been  among 
those  who  were  disfranchised  and  fined.  His  fine  of  forty 
pounds  was  remitted,  though  I  do  not  find  any  record  of  his 
restoration  to  full  citizenship,  which  probably  he  obtained.  He 
remained  in  Boston,  on  the  removal  of  the  family,  and  was  a 
brave  captain,  doing  good  service  in  Philip's  war,  and  receiving  a 
mortal  wound  in  Quaboag  [Brookfield]  fight.  He  was  the  great 
grandfather  of  Thomas  Hutchinson,  our  provincial  governor  and 
historian,  who,  in  his  latter  capacity,  seeking  to  subordinate  filial 
sentiment  to  impartiality,  has  hardly  done  justice  to  his  ances 
tress  in  his  narration  of  her  troubles. 

Thomas  Savage,  another  of  the  disarmed,  had  married  a 
daughter  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  afterwards  he  became  son- 
in-law  of  her  strongest  enemy,  Rev.  Zachariah  Symmes.  The 
Hon.  James  Savage,  his  descendant,  as  editor  and  commen 
tator  of  Winthrop,  gives  us  another  example  of  impartiality  in 
his  faithful  annotations  concerning  the  Antinomian  controversy. 

A  period  of  twenty  years  elapsed  between  the  struggle  against 
Antinomianism  and  the  special  legislation  against  the  Quakers. 
But  the  interval  was  divided  by  another  contentious  issue, 
which  threatened  to  put  the  ecclesiastical  basis  of  the  govern 
ment  to  a  severer  strain  than  it  could  safely  bear,  though  still  it 
triumphed.  Again  the  issue  was  one  which  engaged  both 
intruders  and  dissentients  against  the  Government,  though  the 
disaffection  was  mainly  that  of  transient  residents  and  non- 
freernen.  Mr.  William  Vassall,  one  of  the  original  assistants, 
had  come  over  with  Winthrop ;  but,  from  some  disaffection,  had 
very  soon  returned  to  England.  After  residing  there  five  years, 
he  came  hither  again,  but,  by  preference,  to  Plymouth  colony.  He 
was  intensely  opposed  both  to  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  rule 
set  up  by  his  old  associates.  Being,  as  Winthrop  says,1  "  a  man 
of  a  busy  and  factious  spirit,"  and  "  never  at  rest  but  when  in 
the  fire  of  contention,  he  had  practised  with  such  as  were  not 
1  Jour.,  vol.  i.  pp.  26  and  321. 


102  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

members  of  our  churches "  to  initiate  a  new  strife.  Robert 
Child  and  six  others,  accordingly,  in  May,  1646,  addressed  a 
Remonstrance  and  Petition  to  the  General  Court,  complaining 
that  the  residents  here  were  not  governed  by  the  laws  of  Eng 
land  ;  that  they  were  kept  out  of  civil  privileges  as  not  being 
church-members,  while  church-membership  was  to  be  secured 
only  by  a  covenant  which  was  not  fairly  framed  ;  that  their 
children  were  denied  Christian  baptism,  and  they  themselves 
compelled  by  fine  to  support  and  attend  religious  ministrations : 
for  all  which  grievances  they  asked  redress.  The  Court,  having 
made  arrangements  for  a  synod  of  churches,  issued,  on  Nov.  4, 
1646,  a  stiff  "  Declaration  "  in  answer.  They  insist  that  "  ye 
Government  is  framed  according  to  our  charter  and  ye  funda 
mental  and  common  laws  of  England,  and  carried  on  according 
to  the  same;"  adding,  however,  these  important  clauses,  which 
we  know  now  how  to  fill  in  with  all  the  meaning  they  then 
implied,  —  "  taking  the  words  of  eternal  truth  and  righteousness 
along  with  them,  as  that  rule  by  which  all  kingdoms  and  juris 
dictions  must  render  account  of  every  act  and  admistration  in 
the  last  day."  What  was  so  "  taken  along  "  with  the  laws  of 
England,  was  the  Bible,  not  by  any  means  as  of  secondary 
authority.  The  "  Declaration  "  is  followed  by  a  series  of  par 
allelisms  between  Magna  Charta  and  the  Colony  Laws,  a  liberal 
allowance  being  made  for  statutes  "  alterable  for  occasions." 1 

The  petitioners  carried  their  appeal  to  Parliament,  but  without 
avail,  there  being  then  a  good  understanding  between  that  Court 
and  ours.  The  complaints  which  were  zealously  urged  in  Eng 
land  against  the  rigid  and  persecuting  course  of  the  authorities 
of  Massachusetts,  drew  from  their  old  associate,  the  noble  Sir 
Richard  Saltonstall,  a  letter  of  sharp  rebuke,  addressed  to  Cotton 
and  Wilson,  somewhere  between  1645  and  1653.  A  leading 
and  highly  honored  assistant,  he  had  arrived  here  with  Winthrop, 
June  12,  1630 ;  but,  after  some  trifling  alienating  experiences,  he 
went  back  to  England  at  the  close  of  the  following  March,  leav 
ing  here  some  of  his  family,  but  never  returning  himself.  He 
continued,  however,  to  exert  his  powerful  influence  to  befriend 
the  colony,  and  to  circumvent  its  enemies  at  the  English  courts. 
The  difficulty  of  his  task  in  that  capacity,  rather  than  any  doubt 
i  Hutchinson's  Coll.,  pp.  188-218. 


BY  THE  FOUNDERS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.          103 

that  he  had  not  shared,  or  had  lost  his  interest  in,  the  religious 
designs  of  his  former  associates,  may  have  prompted  some  of  the 
stinging  rebukes  of  that  letter.  He  writes,  — 

"  Reverend  and  deare  friends  whom  I  unfaynedly  love  and  respect : 
It  doth  not  a  little  grieve  my  spirit  to  hear  what  sadd  things  are  reported 
dayly  of  your  tyranny  and  persecutions  in  New  England,  as  that  you  fyne, 
whip  and  imprison  men  for  their  consciences.  First,  you  compel  such  to 
come  into  your  assemblies,  as  you  know  will  not  join  with  you  in  your 
worship,  and  when  they  show  their  dislike  thereof  or  witniss  against  it, 
then  you  styrre  up  your  magistrates  to  punish  them  for  such  (as  you  con- 
cey  ve)  their  public  affronts.  Truly,  friends,  this  your  practice  of  compelling 
any  in  matters  of  worship  to  doe  that  whereof  they  are  not  fully  persuaded, 
is  to  make  them  sin,  for  so  the  Apostle  (Rom.  14  and  23)  tells  us,  and 
many  are  made  hypocrites  thereby,  conforming  in  their  outward  man  for 
fear  of  punishment." 

He  prays  for  them  and  hopes  they  will  — 

"  not  practice  those  courses  in  a  wilderness  which  you  went  so  farre  to 
prevent.  These  rigid  wayes  have  layed  you  very  lowe  in  the  hearts 
of  the  saynts.  I  doe  assure  you  I  have  heard  them  pray  in  the  publique 
assemblies,  that  the  Lord  would  give  you  meeke  and  humble  spirits,  not 
to  stryve  so  much  for  uniformity,  as  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  spirit,  in  the 
bond  of  peace.  —  I  hope  you  do  not  assume  to  yourselves  infallibilitie  of 
judgement,  when  the  most  learned  of  the  Apostles  confesseth  he  knew  but 
in  part,  and  saw  but  darkely  as  thro  a  glass.  Oh  that  all  those  who  are 
brethren,  tho  yet  they  cannot  thinke  and  speake  the  same  things,  might  be 
of  one  accord  in  the  Lord." 1 

Cotton,  for  himself  and  for  his  brother  Wilson,  replied  to  this 
letter  of  frank  and  friendly  rebuke,  in  a  spirit  of  loving  respect 
for  the  writer,  but  disclaiming  all  blame,  and  standing  stoutly  for 
their  Bible  model  in  their  proceedings.  Saltonstall  had  been  at 
least  fourteen  years  withdrawn  from  any  present  share  of  adminis 
tering  "the  church  in  the  wilderness."  Away  from  the  tentative 
processes  and  the  actual  difficulties  of  the  scheme  on  trial  here, 
he  had  the  equally  tasking  responsibility  of  meeting  the  perplexi 
ties  which  it  involved  on  the  other  side  of  the  water. 

The  saddest  and  darkest  stain  upon  the  early  annals  of 
Massachusetts  attaches  to  the  treatment  of  the  people  called 
Quakers.  And  yet  the  fair  and  full  rehearsal  of  the  facts  which 

1  Hutchinson  Papers,  pp.  401-407. 


104  TREATMENT   OP   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

compose  a  faithful  narrative  of  what,  beginning  in  comedy  ended 
in  tragedy,  will  certainly  avail  to  relieve  the  burden  of  wanton 
and  ruthless  cruelty  cast  upon  our  legislators.  Two  leading 
positions  must  be  taken  at  the  start. 

First,  it  is  to  be  frankly  admitted,  that  those  legislators,  though 
beyond  measure  provoked  and  goaded  to  the  course  which  they 
pursued,  and  though  they  acted  with  slow  deliberation,  and  were 
always  ready  to  interpose  mercy  for  judgment,  did  nevertheless, 
as  seen  in  the  light  of  our  day,  act  very  unwisely ;  allowed  their 
timid  fears  to  master  their  reason,  and  committed  themselves  to 
a  dilemma,  either  horn  of  which  humiliated  and  tortured  them. 
Second,  it  is  to  be  as  frankly  and  positively  affirmed,  that  their 
Quaker  tormentors  were  the  aggressive  party ;  that  they  wan 
tonly  initiated  the  strife,  and  with  a  dogged  pertinacity  persisted 
in  outrages  which  drove  the  authorities  almost  to  frenzy ;  while 
with  a  stiff  temper  of  audacity,  as  the  authorities  saw  it,  but  of 
fidelity  to  holy  duty  as  they  felt,  they  courted  the  extreme  penal 
ties  which  they  might  at  any  moment  have  escaped,  except 
through  constraint  of  their  "  inspirations." 

This  episode  in  our  history,  mingled  of  the  ludicrous  and  the 
dismal,  dates  from  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  the 
planting  of  the  colony.  Many  of  the  wiser  and  gentler  spirits 
which  at  first  had  sway  here,  and  whose  judgment  would  doubt 
less  have  stopped  short  of  the  tragic  inflictions  visited  on  four 
so-called  Quakers,  had  gone  to  their  rest.  Winthrop,  Cotton, 
Wilson,  and  others  like  them,  as  they  passed  away,  left  the  ad 
ministration  of  affairs  in  State  and  Church  to  men  more  stern 
and  less  wise  than  themselves.  In  the  mean  while,  foreign  and 
domestic  troubles  and  perplexities  had  contributed  to  endanger 
the  colony,  to  threaten  its  liberties,  and  to  make  the  manage 
ment  of  its  affairs  even  more  difficult.  The  emergencies  of  the 
time  made  it  of  the  most  critical  necessity  to  keep  out  all  dis 
turbers,  to  secure  internal  harmony,  and  to  cling  to  the  well- 
proved  safeguards  of  the  first  enterprise. 

The  root  of  the  prevalent  superficial  opinion,  founded  upon 
an  unintelligent,  cursory,  and  hap-hazard  way  of  writing  and 
reading  our  history,  and  which  heaps  an  unrelieved  burden  of 
censure  upon  our  colonial  court  for  its  proceedings  against  the 
Quakers,  presents  itself  at  once  to  an  impartial  inquirer.  Mis- 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS   OP   MASSACHUSETTS.  105 

apprehension  and  error,  leading  to  positive  injustice  to  our  legis 
lators,  come  in  the  popular  mind,  from  identifying  modern 
Quakers  with  the  sort  of  persons  whom  our  Fathers  knew  and 
dealt  with  under  that  name.  When  one  or  a  group  of  those 
excellent  people  known  as  Friends  is  seen  quietly  passing  our 
streets,  if  any  descendant  of  our  colonists,  or  any  foreign-born 
citizen,  trusting  to  ignorance  in  the  lack  of  knowledge,  should  say 
to  himself,  "•  Those  are  the  sort  of  people  who,  two  hundred  years 
ago,  were  imprisoned,  whipped,  and  mutilated  here,  and  four  of 
whom  were  hung  on  Boston  Common,"  he  would  need  to  be 
sent  back  to  the  record. 

The  intrusive,  pestering,  indecent,  and  railing  disturbers  of 
early  Massachusetts,  lawless  and  ignorant  as  most  of  them  were, 
have  scarcely  a  single  point  of  affinity  with  the  dignified  and 
highly  esteemed  Friends  of  our  day.  These  last  are,  and  for 
several  generations  have  been,  especially  noted  for  quietude  of 
spirit,  for  a  grave  solemnity  of  demeanor,  and  a  modest  unob- 
trusiveness.  Indeed,  it  would  be  hard  to  define  stronger  points 
of  contrast  in  speech,  conduct,  and  even  in  some  important  mat 
ters  of  opinion  and  religious  belief,  than  those  which  really  dis 
tinguished  between  the  first  and  the  modern  Quakers.  Those 
whom  our  Fathers  knew  were  of  the  type  of  Fox  and  Burroughs 
and  Naylor.1 

1  In  vol.  i.  pp.  10  to  158,  of  Burton's  Parliamentary  Diary,  may  be  read  the  curi 
ous  and  wearisome  debate  upon  the  case  of  Naylor,  extending  over  eleven  days. 
That  the  wise  and  grave  men  of  the  English  Parliament  of  1656  should  have  found 
material  in  that  case  for  so  long  a  discussion,  when  so  much  important  business  had 
to  be  postponed  by  it,  is  in  itself  a  suggestive  fact.  The  perusal  of  that  tedious 
story  will  nevertheless  reward  a  reader,  if  he  will  take  it  as  a  chapter  of  the  struggle 
and  development  of  opinion  concerning  full  liberty  of  conscience.  Naylor,  however, 
was  indicted  and  condemned  for  blasphemy.  He  had  rode  into  Bristol  in  a  guise, 
and  with  observances,  imitating  the  entry  of  Jesus  Christ  into  Jerusalem.  The  in 
dictment  against  him  was  :  "  That  he  assumed  the  gesture,  words,  names,  and  attri 
butes  of  our  Saviour,  Christ."  Narrowly  escaping  capital  punishment,  he  was 
sentenced  to  be  pilloried  and  whipped  in  two  places  in  London,  to  have  his  tongue 
bored  with  a  hot  iron,  to  be  branded  on  the  forehead  with  the  letter  B,  to  be  sent  to 
Bristol,  there  to  ride  "  on  a  horse  bare-ridged,  with  his  face  back,"  to  be  whipped  again, 
and  then  brought  back  to  prison  in  London,  debarred  the  use  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper, 
and  of  all  food  but  what  lie  should  labor  for.  Cruelly  treated  as  he  had  been,  the 
victim  for  a  time  of  an  insane  enthusiasm,  and  of  the  fanatical  folly  of  some  admirers, 
he  was  for  a  time  disowned  by  the  Quakers.  Coming  to  his  senses  after  two  years' 
imprisonment,  he  grieved  over  his  delusions,  and  became  an  approved  and  effective 
preacher.  His  utterances  just  before  his  death  have  a  deep  tenderness,  sweetness, 
and  beauty. 


106  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

In  "  An  addition  to  the  book  entitled,  '  The  Spirit  of  the  Mar 
tyrs  revived,'"  published  just  one  hundred  years  after  the  first 
coming  of  the  Quakers  to  Massachusetts,  Joseph  Bolles,  one  of 
the  earnest  Friends,  draws  a  censorious  contrast,  "  concerning  the 
difference  between  the  former  Quakers,  that  suffered  Persecutions 
and  these  in  this  day,"  as  follows :  — 

"  If  we  may  know  them  by  their  Fruits,  they  were  two  manner  of  Peo 
ple  ;  the  first  often  going  to  Meeting  Houses,  and  bearing  a  godly  testi 
mony,  after  the  speaker  had  done  [not  always  waiting  for  that,  however], 
also  Teaching  and  Exhorting  at  other  public  places,  for  which  they  suffered 
much  Persecution,  which  they  took  JON  fully,  being  upheld  by  the  Power 
of  God.  And  these,  only  holding  Meetings  of  their  own  in  a  formal  way, 
as  other  Professors  do,  having  a  form  of  Godliness,  and  not  the  Power 
and  Life  thereof,  as  the  suffering  Quakers  had ;  minding  earthly  things, 
being  adulterated  and  living  in  the  friendship  of  the  World,  which  is  enmity 
with  God.  So  these,  not  having  the  spirit  as  the  first  Quakers  had,  are 
no  more  to  be  compared  with  them,  than  a  dead  Tree  may  be  compared 
to  a  living  Tree." 

The  writer  was  certainly  unjust  in  thus  making  the  difference 
wrought  by  a  century  to  consist  only  in  this,  that  the  first  Quak 
ers  kept  themselves  alive  by  disturbing  other  people,  while  his 
contemporaries  stagnated  among  themselves.  The  Friends  did 
not  settle  into  quietude,  till  they  had  secured  a  general  recogni 
tion  of  the  vitalities  of  their  system  of  truth.  They  have  ever 
since  met  the  unpopularity  of  standing  for  advanced  and  unwel 
come  truths,  and  for  reforms. 

Those  whom  we  know  are  of  the  type  of  Penn,  Barclay,  and 
Whittier.  The  conduct,  at  least,  of  those  who  first  bore  the  name, 
would  find  its  severest  rebukers  in  such  as  now  bear  it.  As  to 
religious  opinions,  or  theology,  distinctly  characteristic  of  the  in 
truders  here,  it  is  curious  to  note  how  little  those  had  to  do  with 
the  strife.  Penn  and  Barclay  wrought  out  for  the  Friends,  a  re 
ligious  system  for  belief  and  practice  which  would  do  honor  to 
any  fellowship  of  Christians  at  the  present  time.  But  that  was 
the  product  of  a  later  age  of  Quakerism,  calmly,  intelligently, 
and  even  philosophically  elaborated  by  nobly  endowed  men. 
The  crude  and  indigested  notions  which  the  early  Quakers  uttered 
"  in  a  prophetical  way,"  sounded  like  the  wildest  rant,  to  be  re 
lieved  of  the  reproach  of  blasphemy  only  by  being  referred  to  a 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.  107 

besotted  stupidity  or  a  shade  of  distraction.  Our  Fathers  cared 
little,  if  at  all,  for  the  Quaker  theology.  They  did  not  get  so 
far  as  that  in  dealing  with  them.  Not  being  inclined  to  accept 
the  account  which  the  Quakers  gave  of  themselves  as  being 
under  the  peculiar  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  our  Fathers  dealt 
with  them  on  the  score  of  their  manners,  their  lawlessness,  and 
their  offensive  speech  and  behavior.  Yet  it  is  also  true  that  the 
peculiar  set  of  Quakers  who  came  and  testified,  and  defiantly 
insisted  upon  returning  and  staying  here,  would  not  have  been  in 
all  respects  exactly  what  they  were,  nor  have  done  all  that  they 
did,  and  as  they  did,  if  they  had  not  had  just  such  persons  to 
deal  with  them  as  they  confronted  here. 

We,  indeed,  in  the  calm  retrospect  by  which  we  study  past 
developments  of  new  opinions,  and  in  the  intelligent  analysis 
which  we  make  of  the  working  elements  that  go  to  the  produc 
tion  of  a  fresh  truth,  can  apprehend  the  high  and  pure  motive 
which  not  only  led,  but  really  inspired,  those  unwelcome  mission 
aries  to  our  Bay.  They  were  the  advanced  pleaders  for  a  liberty 
which  is  now  our  life,  for  a  form  of  faith  and  piety  which  alone 
has  power  for  a  free  soul.  The  most  illiterate  and  incoherent  of 
them  had  the  Divine  gift.  They  put  their  sincerity  beyond  all 
question,  by  their  often  meek,  but  always  unflinching,  endurance 
of  contumely  and  violence.  And,  without  doubt,  much  of  their 
terrible  abusiveness  of  language  was  wholly  free  from  malice  and 
any  ill-intention,  but  was  prompted  wholly  from  an  honest  and 
severely  righteous  sense  of  the  errors  and  superstitions  which 
they  assailed.  But  all  this,  we  must  again  remind  ourselves,  is 
from  our  own  point  of  view,  not  from  that  of  our  Fathers.  The 
colonists  had  themselves  suffered  for  opinion's  sake.  They,  too, 
had  their  visions,  not  "  of  private  interpretation,"  and  they 
thought  they  had  a  skill  in  "  trying  spirits,"  and  must  look  for 
the  devil  always  under  a  disguise. 

George  Fox,  the  reputed  founder  of  the  system  of  belief  and 
practice  known  as  Quakerism,  has  come  to  stand  in  many 
sketchy  and  aesthetic  essays,  as  a  profoundly  original  genius,  a 
man  of  nature's  own  large  endowing,  a  seer  and  an  organizer. 
He  was  nothing  of  the  sort.  A  cursory  perusal  of  those  old 
books  describing  the  heresies  and  sectaries  then  abounding  in 
England,  to  which  I  have  referred,  will  convince  a  reader  that, 


108  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

before  Fox  came  upon  the  stage,  all  the  fancies,  scruples,  and 
oddities  of  opinion  and  behavior  by  which  he  and  his  compan 
ions  first  won  their  notoriety,  were  all  ready  for  their  adoption. 
Fox  was  an  eclectic.  He  picked  up  in  the  various  places  where 
he  wandered,  and  from  the  mixed  and  multiform  company 
with  which  he  associated,  every  one  of  his  peculiar  ideas  and 
crotchets. 

Though  he  had  a  native  vigor  of  understanding,  and  a  soul 
of  sincerity  and  purity,  he  was  an  illiterate  and  ill-balanced  man. 
Shoemaker  and  shepherd  as  he  was  by  turns,  he  was  given  to 
hypochondriac  meditations;  and  when,  with  his  seeking  and 
inquisitive  mind,  he  commenced  his  rovings,  he  found  stimulant 
and  food  for  his  morbidly  eccentric  nature  in  any  shred  of  truth 
which  he  gathered  on  the  way.  The  fellowship  which  he  drew 
around  him  was  of  those  like  himself,  waiting  —  as  the  phrase 
went  —  for  some  one  who  would  "  speak  to  their  condition,"  and 
then  ready  by  public  or  private  harangues, "  testimonies,"  or  "  pro 
phetical  burdens,"  to  make  that  condition  of  theirs  a  standard  for 
trying  other  peoples'  spirits.  Some  of  the  sect  did  get  hold  of, 
and  urge  with  earnest,  simple  eloquence,  living  truths  which  lay 
latent  in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  unrecognized  and  unapplied, 
according  to  their  due  value  and  authority,  by  the  Church  of 
their  day.  But  the  Quakers  threw  these  fresh  truths  out  of  their 
proportions  and  relations  in  dealing  with  them. 

If  Fox,  as  he  once  purposed,  had  gone  into  physic,  instead  of 
into  divinity,  he  would  not  have  led  so  harmless  a  life.  But,  as 
a  preacher,  he  was  known  as  a  disturber  of  the  peace,  a  reviler 
of  other  ministers  of  religion,  and  of  magistrates.  His  tongue 
was  a  sharp  one,  though  he  referred  its  sharpness  to  the  Spirit. 
He  railed  and  testified  in  all  public  places  and  assemblies,  and 
of  course  was  buffeted,  mobbed,  and  put  into  jail.  He  was  one 
of  those  harmless  enthusiasts,  who  are  best  reduced  to  soberness 
by  being  to  a  degree  listened  to,  and  then  let  alone.  But  neither 
he  nor  his  fellows  would  have  been  satisfied  with  being  slighted: 
nor  were  those  whom  they  abused  and  reviled,  inclined  to  give 
them  the  benefit  of  indifference.  Some  of  his  associates  far 
exceeded  him  in  their  offensiveness  of  speech  and  behavior. 
The  English  jails  soon  became  filled  with  Quakers,  who,  curi 
ously  enough,  were  by  many  regarded  as  disguised  Popish  emis- 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.  109 

saries  of  the  Franciscan  order  in  the  service  of  Rome.  Baxter 
rashly  asserts  that  many  such  friars  had  been  found  speaking  in 
the  Quaker  assemblies. 

The  home-field  of  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland,  inviting 
and  rewarding  as  it  was,  soon  proved  too  limited  for  the  mission 
ary  zeal  of  the  new  enthusiasts.  Men  and  women  of  the  sect 
soon  found  "  the  burden  and  call  of  their  spirit "  to  carry  their 
testimony  over  the  earth.  The  continent  of  Europe,  with  its 
princes  and  peasants,  offered  them  promising  opportunities,  and 
the  Pope  and  the  Grand  Turk  received  visits  from  them. 

Our  Fathers  were  on  the  watch  for  an  inroad  of  these  de 
spised  but  dreaded  intruders  some  considerable  time  before  they 
found  their  way  hither.  Through  letters  from  friends  at  home, 
and  the  abounding  pamphlets  of  religious  controversy  of  those 
days,  the  people  of  Massachusetts  were  well  informed  as  to  the 
spirit  and  actings  of  the  Quakers.  Dangerous  books  had  already 
been  found  circulating  in  the  colony,  and  had  been  proscribed  by 
law  in  1654 ;  especially  some  of  those  of  John  Reeves  and  Ludo- 
vick  Muggleton,  "the  two  last  Witnesses,"  .which  contained 
similar  notions  to  those  advanced  by  Fox.  The  authorities  were 
on  the  alert.  Indeed,  but  a  few  weeks  before  the  first  two 
Quakers  arrived  here,  a  solemn  Fast-day  had  been  kept  in  the 
colony,  the  first  object  of  which  was  stated  to  be,  "  to  seek 
the  face  of  God  in  behalf  of  our  native  country,  in  reference 
to  the  abounding  of  errors,  especially  those  of  Ranters  and 
Quakers."  l 

It  was  not  till  July,  1656,  ten  years  after  the  first  preaching 
of  Fox,  that  the  unwelcome  news  was  circulated  in  Boston,  that 
a  ship  in  the  harbor,  from  Barbadoes,  had  on  board  two  women 
Quakers.  One  of  these,  Mary  Fisher,  had  visited  the  Grand  Turk, 
at  Adrianople.  By  order  of  the  magistrates,  they  were  searched 
and  committed  to  jail,  and  their  books  were  burned  ;  the  master 
of  the  vessel  being  put  under  bonds  to  take  them  away  again. 
Hardly  were  they  got  rid  of,  than  a  vessel  arrived  from  England, 
having  on  board  four  Quaker  men,  and  as  many  women,  together 
with  a  ninth  passenger,  a  man,  who,  having  come  on  board  at 
Long  Island,  had  been  converted  by  his  companions.  They 
were  committed  to  jail,  examined,  and  found  by  their  abusive 

l  Rec.,  iv.  (1)  276. 


110  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

speech  to  belong  to  a  class  of  persons  for  whom  there  was  no 
room  or  welcome  here.  Gorton,  from  Rhode  Island,  found 
means  to  communicate  with  them  in  jail,  proposing  to  get  them 
out  of  the  vessel  somewhere  along  the  coast,  as  the  master  of 
it,  in  conformity  with  his  heavy  bonds,  was  carrying  them  out 
of  this  jurisdiction.  But  the  magistrates  thwarted  Gorton's 
purpose. 

Then  began  a  series  of  deliberative  and  legislative  measures 
on  the  part  of  our  authorities,  founded,  as  they  believed,  on 
their  full  right  to  secure  themselves  from  the  seditious  and  ran 
corous  visitors ;  either  by  warning  them  off  from  coming,  or  by 
at  once  banishing  them  on  their  arrival,  with  some  form  of 
punishing  for  a  return  those  who,  having  come  more  than  once, 
were  to  be  shipped  off  again.  There  was  a  gradation  and  an 
adaptation  of  the  penalties  enacted,  designed  to  be  fitly  and 
righteously  adjusted  to  the  measure  of  provocation,  insolence, 
and  defiance  exhibited  by  the  intruders  themselves.  In  every 
previous  instance  in  which  any  offender  had  been  banished  from 
the  jurisdiction,*  the  sentence  had  been  effective.  No  one  who 
had  suffered  it  had  ever  defied  it  by  returning  hither  again. 
The  magistrates  had  reason  to  suppose  that  that  measure  would 
be  sufficient  for  their  protection  in  the  case  of  the  Quakers. 
When  it  is  considered,  too,  that  any  shipmaster  who  should 
bring  such  as  passengers,  was  liable  to  a  heavy  fine,  and  to  other 
enforced  charges ;  and  also,  that  any  resident  who  should  harbor 
or  encourage  a  Quaker,  would  be  severely  dealt  with  for  the 
offence,  —  it  might  appear  as  if  good  manners,  and  generosity 
and  magnanimity  of  spirit,  would  have  kept  the  Quakers  away. 
Certainly,  by  every  rule  of  right  and  reason,  they  ought  to  have 
kept  away.  They  had  no  rights  or  business  here,  and  a  simple 
prohibition  ought  to  have  been  sufficient  even  to  release  their 
consciences  from  all  obligation  to  meddle  with  other  people's 
consciences.  Most  clearly,  they  courted  persecution,  suffering, 
and  death ;  and,  as  the  magistrates  affirmed,  "  they  rushed  upon 
the  sword."  Those  magistrates  never  intended  them  harm,  nor 
would  have  done  them  harm,  except  as  they  believed  that  all  their 
successive  measures  and  sharper  penalties  were  positively  neces 
sary  to  secure  their  jurisdiction  from  the  wildest  lawlessness  and 
an  absolute  anarchy. 


BY  THE  FOUNDERS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.          Ill 

But  they  erred  in  their  calculation,  reasonable  as  it  was. 
They  little  knew  how  stiff  and  indomitable  was  the  will  of  a 
Quaker,  what  a  new  energy  and  persistency  of  purpose  came  of 
a  conscience  reinforced  and  guided  by  a  supposed  inspiration 
from  above.  An  hour's  meditation,  in  some  favorable  mood  of 
mind  or  feeling,  would  lead  a  Quaker  to  the  persuasion,  that  a 
certain  utterance  from  his  lips,  or  a  certain  course  of  conduct, 
was  as  clearly  indicated  to  him  by  God,  as  if  a  commission  had 
floated  down  to  him  from  the  visible  heavens. 

These  "  revelations  "  came  in  a  very  simple  form,  as  prompt 
ings  or  directions,  which  the  subjects  of  them  seem  to  have  been 
persuaded  that  they  could  distinguish,  by  some  test  of  quality 
or  intensity,  from  the  mere  impulses  or  inclinations  which  it 
would  be  unwise  to  yield  to.  Thus,  two  of  the  victims  on 
whom  fell  the  last  penalty  of  Massachusetts  law,  as  we  shall 
soon  have  to  read,  gave  this  account  of  their  reasons  for  pro 
voking  that  penalty.  William  Robinson,  being  in  Rhode  Island, 
felt  that  "  the  Lord  had  commanded  him  to  go  to  Boston,  and  to 
lay  down  his  life  there."  Marmaduke  Stevenson,  at  Barbadoes, 

u  heard  that  New  England  had  made  a  law  to  put  the  servants  of  the 
living  God  to  death,  if  they  returned  after  they  were  sentenced  away. 
Immediately  came  the  Word  of  the  Lord  unto  me,  saying,  *  Thou  knowest 
not  but  that  thou  mayest  go  thither.'  —  So  after  that,  a  vessel  was  made 
ready  for  Rhode  Island,  which  I  passed  in ;  and  the  Word  of  the  Lord 
came  unto  me,  saying,  « Go  to  Boston  with  thy  brother  William  Robin 
son,'"  &C.1 

It  was  in  vain  that  ministers  and  magistrates  pressed  any 
Quaker  who  returned  here,  after  being  banished  the  second, 
third,  and  fourth  time,  and  complained  of  persecution,  with 
the  argument,  that  the  Master,  in  whose  name  he  professed  to 
preach,  had  expressly  instructed  his  disciples,  that,  "  when  per 
secuted  in  one  place,  they  should  flee  to  another."  The  Quaker 
had  a  revelation  which  nullified  that  command. 

With  the  purpose  and  aim  of  impartiality  held  in  the  mind 
of  one  who  is  historically  dealing  with  this  episode,  it  seems  as 
if  the  only  way  to  secure  it,  is  to  divide  between  the  parties 
either  censure  or  palliation.  The  facts  cannot  be  written  with- 

1  Miscellaneous  Papers  in  the  State  House. 


THE 

(UNIVERSITY 


112  TREATMENT   OF  INTRUDERS  AND  DISSENTIENTS 

out  the  use  of  the  stronger  and  the  harsher  adjectives  on  both 
sides.  There  was  no  down,  or  rosewater,  or  language  of  com 
pliment,  in  use  among  them.  Stern,  sinewy,  Saxon  speech,  and 
a  calling  of  things  by  their  right  names,  and  a  setting  before  us 
of  pitched  combatants  in  the  attitude  of  striking  and  striking 
back,  alone  befit  the  facts.  We  like  to  feel  that  the  fight  was 
fair  on  both  sides.  One  party  represented  a  renovated  Israel 
on  the  ocean  border  of  a  wilderness,  seeking,  with  wrong  or 
malice  for  none  outside  of  them,  to  obey  the  call  of  God  in 
planting  a  religious  Commonwealth.  They  required  peace  and 
harmony.  The  other  party  had  new  light ;  and  they  felt  upon 
them  the  obligation  of  making  the  darkness  comprehend  it  The 
Quakers  had  hold  in  common  of  an  advanced  truth,  quick  with 
the  energy  of  the  Spirit.  There  was  accord  enough  among 
them  to  assure  them  that  their  oracles  were  not  private  delusions. 
Their  oracles  were,  indeed,  better  than  the  utterance  of  them. 

There  was  much  that  was  irritating  and  aggravating  in  the 
sharpest  degree,  —  and  intended  to  be  such  —  in  the  language  and 
conduct  of  the  Quakers.  Their  persistency,  their  seeming  wil- 
fulness,  and  aimless  spirit  of  annoyance,  indicated  a  set  purpose 
of  defying  all  remonstrance,  and  of  inviting  a  violent  handling. 

I  do  not  know  that  an  essay  has  ever  been  written  upon  the 
satisfactions  of  being  persecuted,  as  the  word  is,  especially  when 
that  persecution  is  incurred  by  persecuting  other  people.1  But 
there  is  matter  for  such  an  essay,  and  for  its  copious  and  rich 
illustration.  The  men  and  women  who  regarded  themselves  as 
led  by  the  Spirit  to  give  "  testimony,"  which,  as  things  then  were, 
would  subvert  all  civil  and  religious  order  in  this  colony,  and 
overwhelm  it  with  confusion  and  anarchy,  —  while  travelling 
through  the  wilderness,  or  coursing  inland  waters,  or  pinched  in 
the  stocks,  or  screaming  out  through  barred  windows,— doubtless 
took  an  appreciable  comfort  in  their  own  "  sufferings."  They 
felt  that  they  entered  thereby  into  the  fellowship  of  prophets  and 
martyrs.  An  hour  of  brooding  and  elated  thought  lifted  them 

l  Worcester  defines  persecute  thus :  "  To  pursue  with  malignity  or  enmity ;  to 
harass  with  penalties;  to  afflict;  to  distress;  to  oppress  ;  — generally  on  account  of 
opinions."  Webster's  definition  is,  "  To  pursue  in  a  manner  to  injure,  vex,  or 
afflict ;  to  cause  to  suffer  pain  from  hatred  or  malignity  ;  to  harass  ;  to  beset  in  an 
annoying  way."  The  reader  may  make  his  own  selection  and  application. 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.  113 

to  heights  of  intense  enthusiasm.  A  spell  wrought  upon  their 
spirits ;  and  they  yielded  themselves,  as  they  thought,  to  a  guid 
ance  from  above.  Their  full  sincerity  was  proved  by  their 
shrinking  from  no  burden,  mortification,  sacrifice,  or  pain,  which 
lay  in  their  way  of  obligation.  Modest  and  pure  women,  under 
this  spell,  would  rush  into  the  public  highways,  or  into  a  crowded 
place  of  worship,  and,  independent  of  all  the  art  or  materials  of 
dressmakers,  would  make  a  distressing  spectacle  of  themselves. 
One  such,  coming  into  a  meeting-house  in  this  condition,  had 
smeared  herself  with  black  paint,  —  as  a  sign,  she  said,  of  the 
black-pox,  which  she  prophesied  God  would  send  on  this  cruel 
jurisdiction. 

I  have  before  me  a  copy,  which  I  made  from  a  miscellaneous 
mass  of  manuscripts  in  our  archives  in  the  State  House,  of 
official  papers  connected  with  the  legislation  and  the  proceedings 
against  the  Quakers.  Among  these  are  many  original  letters, 
on  scraps  of  paper,  written,  in  the  jail,  by  imprisoned  Quakers 
to  their  friends  or  to  the  magistrates.  Most  of  these,  even  those 
whose  grammar,  diction,  and  chirography  indicate  the  least  of 
culture,  express,  often  with  great  sweetness  and  gentleness  of 
spirit,  a  heroism  of  heart  and  a  self-centred  calm  of  conviction 
fully  befitting  witnesses  for  the  truth  of  God.  In  general,  these 
papers  fail  of  bearing  out  the  charge  of  our  own  authorities,  that 
the  Quakers  were  beyond  measure  abusive  in  their  speech.  And 
it  is  probable  that  the  sternness  of  face  which  was  set  against 
them,  the  rough  handling  which  they  received,  and  the  offensive 
epithets  applied  to  them,  occasionally  irritated  them  into  coarse 
ness  and  violence  of  language  not  habitual  with  them. 

Some  livelier  specimens  of  their  rhetoric  than  any  which  I 
have  found  in  our  own  records,  passed  under  my  eyes  among 
the  rich  stores  of  the  British  Museum. 

Among  these  is  a  tract 1  bearing  this  title :  — 

"N.  England's  Ensigne,  It  being  the  Account  of  Cruelty,  the  Pro 
fessors'  Pride,  and  the  Articles  of  their  Faith;  signified  in  characters 
written  in  blood,  wickedly  begun,  barbarously  continued  and  inhumanly 
finished  (so  far  as  they  have  gone)  by  the  present  power  of  darkness 
possest  in  the  Priests  and  Rulers  in  N.  England,  with  the  Dutch  also 

1  Numbered  in  Catalogue,  493.  h 

6 
8 


114  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS. 

inhabiting  the  same  land.  In  a  bloody  and  cruel  birth  which  the  Hus 
band  to  the  Whore  of  Babylon  hath  brought  forth  by  ravishing  and 
torturing  the  seed  of  the  Virgin  of  Israel,"  &c.  "  Written  at  sea,  by  us 
whom  the  wicked  in  scorn  call  Quakers." 

Of  this,  Humphrey  Norton  was  the  writer.  The  Massa 
chusetts  people  are  described  as  "  Cruel  English  Jewes."  New 
England  is  "  the  most  vainest  and  beastliest  place  of  all  Bruits 
[brutes],  the  most  publicly  propbane,  and  the  most  covertly 
corrupt."  One  of  his  company,  he  says,  went  to  the  meeting 
house  in  Martha's  Vineyard;  "and  after  the  Priest  Thomas 
Maho  [Mayhew]  had  done  his  speech,  unspake  a  few  words." 
Being  thrust  out  for  this,  he  repeated  his  visit  in  the  afternoon. 
Here  is  a  graphic  piece  of  etching :  — 

"  A  man  that  hath  a  covetous  and  deceitful  rotten  heart ;  lying  lips 
which  abound  among  them,  and  a  smooth,  fawning,  flattering  tongue,  and 
short  hair,  and  a  deadly  enmity  against  those  that  are  called  Quakers  and 
others  that  oppose  their  wayes,  such  a  hypocrite  is  a  fit  man  to  be  a 
member  of  any  N.  England  church. 

"  J.  Rous  and  H.  Norton  were  moved  to  go  to  the  great  meeting  house 
at  Boston  upon  one  of  their  Lector  days,  where  we  found  John  Norton 
their  teacher  set  up,  who  like  a  babling  Pharisee  run  over  a  vain 
repetition  near  an  hour  long  (like  an  impudent  smooth  fac'd  harlot,  who 
was  telling  her  Paramoors  a  long  fair  story  of  her  husband's  kindness, 
while  nothing  but  wantonness  and  wickedness  is  in  her  heart.)  When 
his  glass  was  out  he  begun  his  sermon,  wherein,  amongst  many  lifeless 
expressions,  he  spake  much  of  the  danger  of  these  who  are  called  Quakers. 
Some  of  his  hearers  gaped  on  him  as  if  they  expected  honey  should  have 
dropped  from  his  lips.  And  amongst  other  of  his  vain  conceits  he 
uttered  this,  (whereby  he  plainly  discovered  the  blindness  and  rottenness 
of  his  heart,)  that  the  Justice  of  God  is  the  Armor  of  the  Devil :  the 
which,  if  true,  then  is  the  Devil  sometimes  covered  with  Justice :  which 
is  more  than  ever  I  heard  any  of  his  servants  say  on  his  behalf  before," 
&c. 

« 13'*  of  2d  Month,  1658  Sarab  Gibbins  and  Dorothy  Waugh 
spoke  at  Lector.  Death  fed  Death  through  the  painted  sepulchre 
John  Norton."  And,  «  as  a  sign  of  his  emptiness,"  the  women 
broke  two  empty  bottles  over  him. 

The  same  lively  journal  contains  an  impudent  letter  to 
Governor  "  Indicot."  If  there  was  an  epithet  beyond  all  others 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  115 

offensive  to  a  New-England  minister,  it  was  that  of  "  Priest " 
which  the  Quakers  so  freely  used.  "  Baal's  priests,"  "  the  seed 
of  the  Serpent,"  "  the  brood  of  Ishmael,"  were  other  titles.  We 
can  hardly  conceive  of  the  indignation  caused  by  these  wanton 
disturbances  of  the  exercises  of  the  "  Thursday  Lecture." 

It  is  possible,  that,  when  a  Puritan  congregation  was  startled 
and  shocked  by  such  an  apparition  among  them  as  that  of  an 
unclothed  woman,  or  by  a  less  indecent  method  of  Quaker 
testifying,  the  minister  may  at  the.  moment  have  been  reading 
from  the  Bible,  how  one  of  the  old  prophets  had,  without  his 
garments,  delivered  himself  in  a  similar  prophetical  way  of  his 
burden.  Our  Fathers  listened  to  the  holy  record  of  such  doings 
with  the  profoundest  reverence ;  but  the  living  imitation  infuri 
ated  them.  They  could  not,  or  they  would  not,  on  the  bare 
word  of  the  Quakers  themselves,  believe  that  they  were  inspired 
directly  from  the  Holy  God.  They  had  another  way  of  account 
ing  for  the  phenomena.  Yet  who  can  doubt  but  that  some 
high- wrought  fervors,  or  some  sweet  inward  satisfactions,  com 
pensated  the  reproachings,  buffetings,  and  whippings  which 
the  victims  drew  upon  themselves.  Indeed,  they  often  contrived 
to  make  rather  a  good  thing  of  it.  They  rallied  and  comforted 
and  reinforced  each  other.  They  would  not  work  in  the  prisons, 
nor  pay  jail  fees.  They  excited  the  sympathy  of  some  of  the 
tender  and  less  rigid  members  of  the  colony,  who  would  intro 
duce  food  into  the  windows  of  the  prison,  and  who  very  soon 
began  to  protest  against  the  cruelty  used  towards  them,  and  to 
listen  favorably  to  their  utterances.  This  sympathy  for  the 
Quakers,  so  likely  to  be,  and  so  soon  actually,  followed  by  dis- 
cipleship  among  our  own  people,  was  what  the  magistrates 
greatly  dreaded.  Many  of  their  harsher  measures  they  regarded 
as  simply  cautions  and  safeguards  against  the  spread  of  Quaker 
notions  with  the  weaker  and  more  sympathetic  among  them 
selves.  If  a  Quaker  in  prison  could  get  pen,  paper,  and  ink- 
horn, —  or,  failing  the  last,  blood  from  a  pricked  finger  would 
serve,  —  he  would  address  a  missive  to  magistrates  and  ministers, 
not  always  conciliatory.  There  are  many  of  these  preserved  in 
our  State  House.  As  the  parties  to  this  terrible  struggle  came 
better  to  understand  each  other,  the  terms  of  either  party  were 
as  follows :  — 


116  TREATMENT   OP   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

The  magistrates,  regarding  the  opinions  and  conduct  of  the 
Quakers  as  seditious  and  blasphemous,  resolved,  in  the  exercise 
of  their  charter-rights,  to  keep  them  out,  or  to  drive  them  out, 
of  their  jurisdiction ;  steadily  increasing  the  penalties  against 
such  as,  having  been  again  and  again  banished,  returned. 

The  Quakers,  on  their  part,  —  assured  that  persecution  among 
Christians  was  wicked,  that  the  Puritan  church-way  was 
oppressive  and  wrong,  and  that  its  intolerance  could  be  worn 
down  and  worn  out  only  by  the  most  resolute  defiance  and 
endurance  of  penalties,  —  professed  their  purpose,  in  the  name 
and  under  the  power  of  God,  to  persecute  the  persecutors  till  they 
ceased  to  persecute.  It  was  a  struggle  between  two  indomitable 
wills  ;  the  one  fortified  by  a  parchment  charter  and  a  church 
covenant,  the  other  borne  up  by  an  intense  conviction  of  direct 
spiritual  guidance.  Our  sympathies  must  go  —  for  go  they 
will  —  wjth  those  who  thus  held  to  a  still  inspiring  and  revealing 
God,  beyond  the  contents  of  a  Book  taken  by  its  letter. 

There  is  something  more  yet  to  be  said,  in  order  that  we  may 
set  the  constituted  authorities  of  Massachusetts  in  the  light  in 
which  they  themselves  stood  and  acted.  Their  horror  of  fanati 
cism  in  religion  had  been  learned  and  intensified  from  the 
terrible  extravagancies  and  the  bloody  tragedies  connected  with 
the  wild  doings  of  the  Anabaptists  of  Munster  under  King  John, 
the  tailor  of  Leyden,  in  the  century  preceding.  Visions  of  a 
repetition  of  these  frenzies  came  up  before  the  horrified  minds 
of  our  magistrates  and  ministers ;  and  they  felt  the  responsi 
bility  of  averting  what  they  so  often  in  their  records  call  up  in 
reference  to  these  mad  Anabaptists.  Again,  mutilation  of  the 
body  had  been  made  familiar  to  them  in  England,  as  a  penalty 
for  malignity,  sedition,  and  heresy.  They  may  have  seen  Leigh- 
ton,  Burton,  Prynne,  and  Bastwick,1  as  thus  mutilated  by  the 

l  Dr.  Leighton,  for  his  book  against  Prelacy,  had  been  sentenced  "  to  suffer  the 
loss  of  both  ears,  to  have  his  nostrils  slit,  his  forehead  branded,  to  be  publicly 
whipped,  fined  ten  thousand  pounds,  and  perpetually  imprisoned."  The  sentence 
was  executed  to  the  letter,  save  that  he  was  set  at  liberty  by  the  Long  Parliament, 
after  twelve  years'  confinement,  when  he  could  neither  see,  hear,  nor  walk. 

Henry  Burton,  Dr.  Bastwick,  and  William  Prynne  were  mutilated  in  a  similar 
manner.  The  last  of  these  having  been  sentenced  a  second  time  to  a  part  of  the 
punishment,  the  stumps  of  his  ears  were  sawed  out.  These  acts  were  done  under 
Episcopal  and  Royal  sanction.  It  is  melancholy  to  think  that  they  should  have  to 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  117 

highest  English  law.  And,  once  more,  our  Fathers  regarded 
Quakers  as  representing  for  them,  of  danger  and  evil,  exactly 
what  plotting  Jesuits  represented  to  the  realm  of  England.  The 
penalty  of  death,  on  Quakers  coming  here  a  fourth  time  after 
banishment,  was  copied  by  them  from  the  English  statute 
against  Jesuits.  The  mutilation  law  was  never  but  partially 
enforced  here. 

The  miscellaneous  manuscripts  of  scraps  of  paper,  to  which 
I  have  referred  as  now  among  the  old  files  in  the  State  House, 
enable  us  to  trace  the  course  of  proceedings  in  this  harassing 
experience,  and  contain  much  curious  matter.  By  an  order  of 
Court,  June  10,  1658,  the  Rev.  John  Norton  was  appointed  to 
write  and  publish  a  treatise  against  the  Quakers.  This  he  did, 
under  the  title  of  "  The  Heart  of  New  England  rent  by  the 
Blasphemies  of  the  present  Generation,"  &c. ;  and  he  received  a 
grant  of  land  for  his  remuneration.  The  Court  had  been  moved 
to  ask  this  service  of  him ;  and  to  other  measures,  by  the  zeal  of 
the  sterner  portion  of  their  constituents.  In  October,  1658,  a 
petition  was  addressed  to  the  Court  from  leading  citizens  of 
Boston,  in  which  they  asked  for  severer  laws  against  the  Quakers. 
The  dangers  and  ruin  threatening  from  their  behavior  and  testi 
monies,  and  the  darkly  drawn  apprehensions  of  the  same  horrors 
as  followed  from  Anabaptism  at  Munster,  are  alleged  as  justify 
ing  a  law  inflicting  death  upon  such  as  should  return  from 
banishment.  Singularly  enough,  the  names  of  several  of  the 
signers  of  this  petition  indicate  them  as  some  of  those  who  had 
been  censured  and  disarmed,  for  having  signed  the  petition  in 
behalf  of  Mr.  Wheelwright.  Some  persons  here  had  evidently 
changed  sides,  from  that  of  sufferers  to  that  of  advocates  of  the 
sternest  discipline.1 

As  I  have  said,  there  was  a  steadily  progressive  legislation  of 
enactments  and  penalties  undertaken  by  Massachusetts,  designed 
to  meet  and  punish  the  successive  acts  of  boldness  and  con- 

a  degree  been  imitated  by  the  Puritan  against  the  Quaker.  It  is  remarkable,  how 
ever,  that,  even  after  his  second  barbarous  punishment,  Mr.  Prynne  should  have 
written  a  book  to  prove  "  that  Christian  Kings  and  magistrates  have  authority, 
under  the  Gospel,  to  punish  idolatry,  apostasy,  heresy,  blasphemy,  and  obstinate 
scliisni,  with  pecuniary,  corporal,  and,  in  some  cases,  with  capital  punishments." 
(Wood's  Athen  Ox.,  ii.  pp.  311-327.) 

1  Vol.  of  Miscel.  Papers  in  the  State  House,  p.  246,  &c. 


118  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

tumacy,  on  the  part  of  the  Quakers,  —  prison,  fines,  whippings, 
mutilation  of  ears  and  tongue,  branding,  and  the  gallows.  Sad, 
sad  indeed,  was  the  climax  to  which  our  Fathers  were  led  on, 
from  an  error  at  the  start.  They  sought,  with  only  partial  suc 
cess,  to  induce  the  other  New-England  colonies  to  keep  pace 
with  them  in  legislation  against  the  Quakers.  Rhode  Island,  as 
furnishing  a  harborage  for  all  sorts  of  consciences,  made  our 
Fathers  uncomfortable,  because  from  it  the  Quakers  had  such  a 
ready  access  to  our  jurisdiction.  Would  that  Massachusetts,  in 
her  own  course  with  them,  had  anticipated  the  method  suggested 
in  the  sly  wisdom  of  the  reply  which  she  received  from  Benedict 
Arnold,  the  President  of  Rhode  Island,  in  answer  to  a  request 
that  that  colony  would  imitate  the  legislation  of  the  Bay 
colony  against  the  Quakers.  Arnold,  speaking  for  his  associates, 
says  :  — 

"  We  find  that  in  those  places  where  this  people  aforesaid,  in  this 
Colony,  are  most  of  all  suffered  to  declare  themselves  freely,  and  are 
only  opposed  by  arguments  in  discourse,  there  they  least  of  all  desire  to 
come.  And  we  are  informed  that  they  begin  to  loathe  this  place,  for 
that  they  are  not  opposed  by  the  civil  authority ;  but  with  all  patience 
and  meekness  are  suffered  to  say  over  their  pretended  revelations  and 
admonitions.  Nor  are  they  like  or  able  to  gain  many  here  to  their  way. 
Surely,  we  find  that  they  like  to  be  persecuted  by  civil  powers  ;  and, 
when  they  are  so,  they  are  like  to  gain  more  adherents  by  the  conceit  of 
their  patient  sufferings,  than  by  consent  to  their  pernicious  sayings." 
(R.  I.  Records,  i.  377.)  l 

But  even  the  all-including  tolerance  of  Roger  Williams  suf- 

1  Our  historian,  Hutchinson,  tries  to  divide  equally  his  censure  upon  our  magis 
trates  and  the  Quakers,  when  he  speaks  (Hist.  i.  380)  of  "the  strange  delusion  the 
Quakers  were  under,  in  courting  persecution  ;  and  the  imprudence  of  the  authorities 
in  gratifying  this  humour,  as  far  as  their  utmost  wishes  could  carry  them." 

The  famous  Richard  Baxter,  of  Kidderminster,  who  had  been  greatly  exercised 
and  annoyed  by  the  personal  abuse  visited  on  him  by  Quakers,  came  at  last  to 
learn  the  same  wise  way  of  humoring  them.  He  writes  in  his  Life  :  — 

"  The  Quakers  would  fain  have  got  entertainment,  and  set  up  a  meeting  in  the 
town,  and  frequently  railed  at  me  in  the  congregation  ;  but  when  I  had  once  given 
them  leave  to  meet  in  the  church  for  a  dispute,  and,  before  the  people,  had  opened 
their  deceits  and  shame,  none  would  entertain  them  more,  nor  did  they  get  one 
proselyte  among  us." 

One  of  his  most  pertinent  questions  to  them  concerning  their  doctrine  of  the 
"inner  light,"  which  they  said  all  men  had,  was  this :  "  If  all  have  it,  why  may  not 
I  have  it  ? " 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS   OP   MASSACHUSETTS.  119 

fered  a  strain  too  much  from  the  Quakers.  Rowing  in  a  skiff 
over  the  Narragansett  Bay,  quickened  by  his  ever-ardent  love  of 
disputation,  to  match  himself  against  some  of  them,  the  keen- 
spirited  old  man  had  a  sore  trial  of  his  patience.  He  after 
wards  wrote  of  Quakers,  — 

"  They  are  insufferably  proud  and  contemptuous.  I  have,  therefore,  pub 
licly  declared  myself,  that  a  due  and  moderate  restraint  and  punishment  of 
these  incivilities,  though  pretending  conscience,  is  so  far  from  persecution 
properly  so  called,  that  it  is  a  duty  and  command  of  God  unto  all  man- 
kinde,  first  in  Families,  and  thence  into  all  mankinde  Societies."  l 

The  summing  up  of  the  severities  in  our  own  colony  is  as 
follows :  twenty-two  Quakers  were  banished  on  pain  of  death ; 
four  were  hung,  one  a  woman ;  three  lost  the  right  ear ;  one  was 
branded  in  the  hand  with  the  letter  H ;  between  thirty  and  forty 
were  whipped. 

The  death  penalty  was  legalized  by  only  a  majority  of  two  in 
the  General  Court ;  and  was  so  strongly  resisted,  as  soon  to  be 
left  in  abeyance. 

The  Court,  from  time  to  time,  urged  to  the  most  stringent 
measures  by  some  of  the  more  austere  spirits,  and  discouraged 

1  "  George  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrowes,"  &c.,  p.  200.  This  curious  book,  of 
which,  though  it  was  published  in  Boston,  in  1676,  there  are  only  four  copies  known 
to  be  extant,  —  one  being  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum, — is  promised  in  a  reprint  by 
the  Narragansett  Club.  It  is  to  be  hoped,  that  a  few  of  those  who  had  known  of 
Roger  Williams's  youthful  experiences  in  Massachusetts  survived  to  enjoy  its  pe 
rusal.  The  old  fire  of  disputation  had  not  gone  out  in  its  writer.  Its  severity  of 
bitterness  and  invective,  its  unsparing  contemptuousness,  streaked  with  real  good 
nature  and  the  old  "conscientious  contentiousness," — make  it  one  of  the  curiosities 
of  literature.  Williams  had  evidently  been  'beyond  measure  provoked  and  horrified 
by  the  Quakers.  He  had  tried  his  skill  upon  them  in  a  meeting  at  Newport,  in  1671  ; 
but  he  says,  that,  while  he  was  speaking,  one  cut  him  off  by  "  falling  to  prayer," 
and  then  another  by  singing.  George  Fox  being  then  in  the  country,  Williams 
challenged  him  and  his  followers  to  a  public  discussion  on  fourteen  propositions,  the 
thirteenth  of  which  is  that,  "  Their  many  Books  and  writings  are  extreamly  poor, 
lame,  naked,  and  swelled  up  with  high  titles  and  words  of  boasting  vapour." 
Williams,  says  Fox,  was  afraid  to  meet  him.  "  This  old  Fox  thought  it  best  to  run 
for  it ;  and  leave  the  work  to  his  journeymen  and  chaplains."  The  disputation  was 
held  at  Newport,  and  rare  sport  it  must  have  afforded  to  uncircumcised  listeners. 
"  God  graciously  assisted  me  in  rowing  all  day  with  my  old  bones,  so  that  I  got  to 
Newport  towards  the  midnight  of  the  day  before  the  meeting"  (p.  24.)  It  was  in 
August,  1672. 

There  is  a  double  joke  in  the  title  of  the  book,  as  it  includes  a  sly  hit  at  Burroughs, 
one  of  Fox's  chosen  companions. 


120  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

by  a  steadily  increasing  number  of  opponents,  moved  either  by 
pity  or  by  a  sense  of  the  utter  futility  of  the  legislation,  were 
evidently,  as  shown  by  scraps  of  paper  still  extant,  most  sorely 
perplexed.  Under  a  sense  of  their  responsibility,  and  moved  by 
their  convictions,  that  Quakers  were  to  the  colony  they  were 
guarding  from  ruin  and  anarchy,  precisely  what  Jesuits  were  to 
the  realm  of  England,  they  felt  justified  in  enacting  and  inflicting 
the  death  penalty  against  the  most  obstinate  and  insidious 
offenders.  They  issued  several  formal  vindications  and  argu 
ments  in  support  of  their  successive  measures.  The  pleas  which 
they  set  up  were  all  minutely  and  elaborately  illustrated  by 
Scripture  texts  and  examples,  like  that  of  Solomon's  putting  to 
death  of  Shimei.1 

The  stern  issue  was  to  be  fully  tried.  Four  Quakers  were 
banished,  Sept.  12,  1659,  on  pain  of  death  if  they  returned. 
Two  of  these,  Mary  Dyer  being  one,  "  found  freedom  to  depart." 
But  she  returned  again  in  a  month,  with  the  other  two,  who 
were  attended  by  a  woman  from  Salem,  bringing  with  her  some 
linen,  which  she  showed  to  the  Governor,  as  intended  for  the 
winding-sheets  of  the  victims. 

The  rest  is  best  narrated  by  the  Court  Record :  — 

"SECOND  SESSION,  GENERAL  COURT,  OCTOBER  18,  1659. 

"  It  is  ordered  that  William  Robbinson,  Marmaduke  Stephenson,  and 
Mary  Dyer,  Quakers,  now  in  prison  for  theire  rebellion,  sedition,  and  pre- 
sumptious  obtruding  themselves  upon  us,  notwithstanding  their  being  sen 
tenced  to  banishment  on  paine  of  death,  as  underminers  of  this  govern 
ment,  &c.,  shall  be  brought  before  this  Court  for  theire  trialls,  to  suffer 
the  poenalty  of  the  lawe  (the  just  reward  of  their  transgression)  on  the 
morrow  morning,  being  the  nineteenth  of  this  instant." 

Being  "  brought  to  the  barre,  they  acknowledged  themselves  to  be  the 
persons  banished.  After  a  full  hearing  of  what  the  prisoners  could  say 
for  themselves,  it  was  put  to  the  question,  whether  the  prisoners,  who 
have  been  convicted  for  Quakers,  and  banished  this  jurisdiction  on  paine 
of  death,  should  be  putt  to  death  according  as  the  lawe  provides  in  that 
case.  The  Court  resolved  this  question  on  the  affirmative ;  and  the 
Governor,  (Endecott)  in  open  Court,  declared  the  sentence  to  W.  Rob 
binson,  that  was  brought  to  the  barr :  W.  R.  yow  shall  goe  from  hence  to 
the  place  from  whence  yow  came,  and  from  thence  to  the  place  of  exe- 

1  1  Kings,  chap.  ii. 


BY  THE   FOUNDERS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.  121 

cution,  and  there  hang  till  yow  be  dead.  The  like  sentence  the  Gqy*.,  in 
open  Court,  pronounced  against  Marmaduke  Steephenson  and  Mary  Dyer, 
being  brought  to  the  barre  one  after  another,  in  the  same  words : 

'*  Whereas"  —  the  above  named  —  "are  sentenced  by  this  Court  to  death 
for  theire  rebellion,  &c.,  it  is  ordered  that  the  Secretary  issue  out  his  war 
rant  to  Edward  Michelson,  marshall  general],  for  repairing  to  the  prison 
on  the  27"1  of  this  instant  October,  and  take  the  said  persons  into  his  cus 
tody,  and  then  forthwith,  by  the  aid  of  Capt.  James  Oliver,  with  one  hun 
dred  souldiers,  taken  out  by  his  order  proportionably  out  of  each  company 
in  Boston,  compleatly  armed  with  pike  and  musketteers,  with  powder  and 
bullett,  to  lead  them  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  there  see  them  hang 
till  they  be  dead,  and  in  theire  going,  being  there,  and  retourne,  to  see  all 
things  be  carried  peaceably  and  orderly.  Warrants  issued. 

"  It  is  ordered  that  the  Reverend  Mr.  Zackery  Simes  and  Mr.  John 
Norton,  repaire  to  the  prison,  and  tender  theire  endeavors  to  make  the 
prisoners  sencible  of  theire  approaching  dainger  by  the  sentence  of  this 
Court,  and  prepare  them  for  theire  approaching  ends. 

"  Whereas  Mary  Dyer  is  condemned  by  the  Generall  Court  to  be  exe 
cuted  for  hir  offences,  on  the  petition  of  William  Dier,  hir  sonne,  it  is 
ordered  that  the  said  Mary  Dyer  shall  have  liberty  for  forty  eight  howers 
after  this  day  to  depart  out  of  this  jurisdiction,  after  which  time,  being 
found  therein,  she  is  forthwith  to  be  executed,  and  in  the  meane  time  that 
she  be  kept  close  prisoner  till  hir  sonne  or  some  other  be  ready  to  carry 
hir  away  within  the  aforesaid  time ;  and  it  is  further  ordered,  that  she 
shall  be  carried  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  there  to  stand  upon  the 
gallowes,  with  a  rope  about  her  necke,  till  the  rest  be  executed. 

"Itt  is  ordered,  that  thirty-six  of  the  souldiers  be  ordered  by  Capt. 
Oliver  to  remain  in  and  about  the  towne  as  centinells,  to  preserve  the  peace 
of  the  place,  whiles  the  rest  goe  to  the  execution. 

"  It  is  ordered  that  the  selectmen  of  Boston  shall,  and  heereby  are  re 
quired  and  impowred  to  presse  tenn  or  twelve  able  and  faithfull  persons 
every  night  during  the  sitting  of  this  Court  to  watch  with  great  care  the 
toune,  especially  the  prison,"  &c. 1 

This  last  order  is  an  evidence,  among  others  which  the  Records 
show,  that  the  magistrates,  charged  as  they  felt  with  the  gravest 
responsibility  in  vindicating  the  authority  of  the  law  against  all 
trifling  and  defiance,  were  still  well  aware  that  a  protesting  and 
indignant  spirit,  widely  working  among  the  citizens,  was  ready 
to  manifest  itself  in  a  threatening  way. 

On  the  27th  of  October,  1659,  a  gallows  stood  on  Boston 
1  Vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  pp.  383-4. 


122  TREATMENT   OP   INTRUDERS    AND   DISSENTIENTS 

Common,  for  the  execution  of  three  condemned  Quakers,  who, 
after  repeated  banishments,  refused  to  accept  their  lives  on  the 
condition  that  they  would  go  away  and  keep  away,  —  W.  Robin 
son,  Marmaduke  Stevenson,  and  Mary  Dyer.  The  train-band 
accompanied  them,  and  drums  were  beat  to  drown  their  testi 
mony.  The  town,  also,  was  put  under  guard,  by  thirty-six  sol 
diers,  against  apprehended  tumult.  The  two  men  were  hung, 
and  buried  beneath  the  gallows.  Mary  Dyer,  who  for  more  than 
twenty  years  had  been  a  trouble  to  Massachusetts,  after  having 
the  noose  put  round  her  neck,  was  pardoned,  and  sent  back  to 
Rhode  Island,  though  with  difficulty  prevailed  on  by  her  son  to 
go.  She  must  have  been  past  middle  age,  if  not  in  the  decline 
of  life.  In  the  Antinomian  troubles,  she  had  been  prominent  as 
a  fast  friend  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  had  suffered  from  the  poor 
superstition  of  the  times,  because  of  an  unhappy  incident  in  her 
maternity.  She  walked  to  the  gallows  between  her  two  con 
demned  companions,  holding  each  of  them  by  a  hand.  The 
marshal  asked  her,  "  If  she  was  not  ashamed  to  walk,  hand  in 
hand,  between  two  young  men  ?  "  She  replied,  "  It  is  an  hour 
of  the  greatest  joy  I  can  enjoy  in  this  world.  No  eye  can  see, 
no  ear  can  hear,  no  tongue  can  speak,  no  heart  can  understand, 
the  sweet  incomes  and  refreshings  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  which 
now  I  enjoy." 

When  she  understood,  on  being  returned  to  the  prison,  upon 
what  account  she  was  reprieved,  she  wrote  to  the  authorities  re 
pudiating  the  ground  of  it,  and  tendered  the  sacrifice  of  her  life 
against  the  law.  It  was  only  by  compulsion  that  she  was  got 
out  of  the  jurisdiction  on  horseback.  She  came  back  again  the 
next  spring.  On  the  gallows  the  second  time,  June  1,  1660,  she 
was  offered  her  life,  if  she  would  promise  to  keep  out  of  Massa 
chusetts.  Her  reply  was :  "  In  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  Lord 
I  came ;  and  in  his  will  I  abide  faithful  to  the  death."  She 
did  so. 

I  have  before  me,  as  I  write,  the  autograph,  on  sadly  stained 
paper,  of  a  poor  and  sorrowful  letter,  dated  at  Portsmouth,  R.L, 
May  3,  1660,  and  addressed  to  Governor  Endicott,  by  his  "  most 
humble  suppliant,  W.  Dyer."  The  letter  draws  tears  now,  if  it 
did  not  from  the  eyes  that  first  read  it.  The  hus'band  pleads  to 
save  his  wife  from  death  on  the  gallows :  — 


BY  THE  FOUNDERS  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.  123 

"  HONORED  SIR,  —  It  is  no  little  grief  of  mind  and  sadness  of  hart,  that 
I  am  necessitated  to  be  so  bould  as  to  supplicate  your  honored  self,  with  the 
Hon-¥  Assembly  of  your  Generall  Court,  to  extend  your  mercy  and  favor 
once  agen  to  me  and  my  children.  Little  did  I  dream  that  I  should  ever 
have  had  occasion  to  petition  you  in  a  matter  of  this  nature,  but  so  it  is 
that  throw  the  divine  providence  and  your  benignity,  my  sonn  obtained  so 
much  pity  and  mercy  att  your  hands,  as  to  enjoy  the  life  of  his  mother. 

"Now  my  supplication  to  your  Honors  is  to  begg  affectionately  the  life 
of  my  deare  wife.  Tis  true  I  have  not  scene  her  above  this  halfe  yeare, 
and  therefore  cannot  tell  how  in  the  frame  of  her  spirit  she  was  moved 
thus  again  to  run  so  great  a  hazard  to  herself  and  perplexity  to  me  and 
mine,  and  all  her  friends  and  well-wishers :  so  it  is,  from  Shelter  Island 
about  by  Pequid,  Narragansett  and  to  the  town  of  Providence,  she  secretly 
and  speedily  journied,  and  as  secretly  from  thence  came  to  your  juris 
diction.  Unhappy  journey  may  I  say,  and  woe  to  that  generation  saye  I 
that  gives  occasion  thus  of  grief  and  trouble  to  those  that  desires  to  be 
quiet,  by  helping  one  another  (as  I  may  say)  to  hazard  their  lives  for  I 
know  not  what  end,  or  to  what  purpose.  If  her  zeale  be  so  greajte  as  thus 
to  adventure,  oh,  let  your  favour  and  pitye  surmounte  itt,  and  save  her 
life.  Let  not  your  forewonted  compassion  be  conquered  by  her  incon 
siderate  madness,  and  how  greately  will  your  renowne  be  spread,  if  by  so 
conquering  you  become  victorious.  What  shall  I  say  more  ?  I  know  you 
are  all  sensible  of  my  condition,  and  let  the  reflect  be,  and  you  will  see 
what  the  petition  is  and  what  will  give  me  and  mine  peace.  Oh  let  mer 
cies  wings  once  more  soar  above  justice  ballance,  and  then  whilst  I  live 
shall  I  exalt  your  goodness.  But  otherwise  twill  be  a  languishing  sor- 
rowe,  yea,  soe  great  that  I  should  gladly  suffer  the  blow  att  once  muche 
rather.  I  shall  forbear  to  trouble  your  Honors  with  words,  neither  am  I 
in  a  capacitye  to  expatiate  myselfe  at  present.  I  only  say  this,  yourselves 
have  been  and  are,  or  may  be,  husbands  to  wife  or  wives,  and  so  am  I, 
yea,  to  one  most  dearlye  beloved.  Oh,  do  not  you  deprive  me  of  her,  but 
I  pray  give  her  me  out  again,  and  I  shall  bee  soe  much  obliged  forever, 
that  I  shall  endeavor  continually  to  utter  my  thanks,  and  render  your 
Love  and  Honor  most  renowned.  Pitye  me.  I  beg  it  with  tears." 

Those  tears  are  in  the  paper  still.  If  he  could  have  answered 
for  his  wife,  she  would  have  lived.  She  answered  for  herself. 

The  next  year,  one  more  banished  Quaker,  William  Leddra, 
who  had  been  a  weary  nuisance  in  many  places,  refused  to  ac 
cept  his  life,  and  was  executed  on  the  Common,  March,  1661. 

Another  condemned  and  sentenced  man  was  in  the  prison, 
but  he  wrote  to  the  magistrates, — 


124  TREATMENT   OP   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS 

"  I,  the  condemned  man,  do  give  forth  under  my  hand,  that  if  I  may 
have  ray  liberty,  I  have  freedom  to  depart  this  jurisdiction,  and  I  know 
not  that  ever  I  shall  come  into  it  any  more.  "W.  CIIRISTOPHERSON."  * 

The  Quaker  will  had  overcome  the  Puritan  will.  The  magis 
trates  relaxed.  The  people  withstood  the  death  penalty.  It  has 
been  often  affirmed,  and  has  been  generally  supposed,  that  the 
authorities  were  arrested  in  their  course  by  a  mandate  procured 
by  a  Quaker,  who  had  been  whipped  in  Salem,  from  Charles  II., 
which  forbade  any  further  capital  proceedings  against  Quakers, 
and  required  that  the  condemned  be  sent  to  England.  Such  a 
royal  letter  was  written  by  the  King,  Sept.  9,  1661,  and  received 
by  our  Court  in  November.  But  before  it  was  even  procured 
from  the  monarch,  the  Court  had  evidently  been  convinced  of  the 
utter  folly  of  its  measures.  It  had  wavered  in  suspense,  vacil 
lated,  and  failed  to  enforce  its  capital  law  against  victims  in  its 
power,  while  it  shrunk  from  using  its  appliances  to  secure  others 
whom  it  might  easily  have  reached. 

It  may  be  that  the  king's  command  was  a  welcome  salvo  to 
the  chagrin  or  mortification  of  the  authorities.  Certain  it  is,  that 
the  Quakers  revelled  over  the  discomfiture  of  the  magistrates, 
and  played  some  of  their  most  offensive  antics  of  railing  and  de 
fiance.  But  they  were  by  no  means  left  to  their  liberty.  The 
whip  and  the  cart-tail,  the  prison  and  the  pillory,  were  still  kept 
in  service  against  them,  even  by  allowance  of  the  King,  and  the 
course  pursued  in  England.  The  General,  the  Quarterly,  and 
the  Magistrates'  and  Local  Courts  found  subjects  in  them  for 
penalties,  more  or  less  severe,  till  perfect  tolerance  was  found  to 
be  the  lesson  of  wisdom,  and  the  condition  of  peace. 

The  Puritan  Commonwealth,  after  a  resolute  struggle  against 
the  successive  shocks,  personal  and  practical,  which  its  essential 
elements  invited,  as  well  as  were  sure  to  encounter,  yielded  even 
then  only  gradually,  though  I  can  hardly  add  gracefully,  to  a 
steady  modification  of  its  original  theory.  Yet  there  was  more 
of  success  than  of  failure  in  the  experiment.  All  of  profound 
sincerity,  and  of  God-fearing  self-consecration,  and  of  stern  re 
solve,  which  put  that  august  experiment  on  trial,  planted  for  it 
foundations,  giving  to  it  its  early  security,  and  constituting  the 

1  Miscel.  Papers. 


BY   THE   FOUNDERS   OP   MASSACHUSETTS.  125 

stability   and   glory   of    the    Commonwealth   which    succeeded 
to  it. 

Sometimes,  as  I  walk  in  our  city  streets,  or  ride  through  our 
clustering  towns  and  villages,  I  imagine  myself  as  having  by  my 
side  one  of  the  old  first  comers  to  this  wilderness ;  some  grave 
man,  in  church  or  magistracy,  who,  after  his  coming,  may  have 
lived  and  wrought  here  more  than  half  a  century,  in  laying  the 
hard  and  deep  foundations  of  things.  I  raise  him  up  —  in  a 
shadow  —  for  my  companionship.  He  goes  along  with  me,  looks 
round  him,  puts  questions,  and  turns  to  me  to  relieve  his  sur 
prise,  to  refix  landmarks,  to  relate  and  account  for  the  changes 
and  developments  of  things  on  our  way.  He  is  stern  and  sharp  : 
but  I  am  not  afraid  of  him ;  for  I  know  that  what  I  have  of 
him  is  only  dust,  and  that  something  more  substantial  represents 
him  elsewhere.  Shadow  as  he  is,  we  can  hardly  keep  our  foot 
ing  in  the  crowded  streets.  He  is  inclined,  at  a  glance,  favorably 
to  regard  our  humanity  in  providing  bird-roosts  in  the  wires 
which  run  over  our  roofs  in  the  air,  unless  he  surmise  them  to  be 
snares  for  catching  birds.  But  these  rows  of  shops  and  stores, 
with  all  their  gilded  gew-gaws  and  displays  of  trifles  and  lux 
uries,  are  about  to  prompt  his  utterance,  just  as  he  is  choked  by  a 
whiff  from  some  "tobacco-taker"  passing  by.  The  theatres,  and 
palaces  of  vice  for  gambling  or  intemperance,  make  him  sad  and 
sour.  But  the  great  school-houses  offer  a  temporary  relief.  He 
wishes  to  rest  awhile  in  the  burial-grounds,  and  study  their 
stones,  —  asking  where  is  his  own.  The  hardest  part  of  the 
explanatory  work  which  falls  to  me,  is  as  we  pass  many  churches, 
• — Jewish  Synagogues,  the  Roman  College  and  Cathedral,  at 
the  sight  and  name  of  which  those  shadowy  lips  seem  to  utter 
something  that  sounds  like  a  very  bad  word.  The  lists  of  voters, 
with  the  un-English  names  upon  them,  and  the  prevalence  of 
Hibernian  patronymics,  are  evidently  too  much  for  him.  The 
explanation  of  the  national  flag  plainly  engages  his  sympathies. 
He  remembers  that  he  and  his  old  contemporaries  were  rather 
tame  in  their  loyalty,  and  that  he  died  thinking,  —  perhaps  hop 
ing, —  that  things  would  one  day  come  about  so,  that  we  should 
have  a  flag  of  our  own.  On  the  whole,  though  the  facts  which 
he  would  have  to  hear  and  face,  and  to  take  for  just  what  they 
are  and  mean,  would  fearfully  exercise  him,  and  lead  him  to  ask 


126  TREATMENT   OF   INTRUDERS   AND   DISSENTIENTS. 

how  all  this  freedom  and  license  had  worked  in  among  us,  and 
whether  Church  and  State  had  not  been  wrecked  over  and  over 
again  in  the  process ;  on  the  whole,  I  think,  he  would  rather  re 
main  alive  with  us,  and  take  his  chance,  and  take  things  as  they 
are,  than  go  back  into  the  ground  again.  One  thing,  I  know, 
would  reconcile  him  to  taking  things  as  they  are;  viz.,  the 
clear  conviction,  that  if  he  and  all  his  generation  could  come 
again  into  their  old  places,  they  could  not  introduce  a  force 
which  would  turn  back  the  current.  They  would  have  to  take 
things  as  they  are,  and  submit  to  the  dispensation  of  human 
freedom,  as  safer  than  Puritan  sway. 

Freedom,  —  sad  and  fearful  and  wicked  things  are  done  in 
that  name,  by  that  plea,  for  that  good ;  but  we  must  accept  it, 
with  all  its  risks,  which  sometimes  frighten  or  dismay  us.  Any 
thing  but  the  most  perfect  and  unfettered  freedom  of  thinking, 
speaking,  and  acting  among  us,  would  peril  the  experiment  we 
are  trying  here,  grander  than  that  of  our  Fathers,  —  of  making 
one  nation  out  of  fragments  of  all  the  populations  of  the  globe. 
There  is  no  form  of  force,  no  method  of  restraint,  no  devices  of 
imperial,  ecclesiastical,  military,  or  even  constitutional  sway, 
which  could  possibly  control  the  processes  of  risk  involved  in  the 
contact  and  citizenship  of  all  the  races,  colors,  temperaments,  and 
classes,  which  we  hold  in  solution  here.  No :  the  wit  of  man, 
piety,  wisdom,  statesmanship,  would  in  vain  attempt,  by  any 
repressive  or  coercive  measures,  any  interference,  however  gentle 
or  however  stern,  to  introduce  any  agency  of  external  authority 
in  the  mighty  process  which  is  working  here.  Nothing  but  per 
fect  freedom,  absolute  soul-liberty  for  the  individual,  can  make 
the  process  safe  on  the  trial.  We  can  dam  rivers.  We  can 
imprison  thousands  of  pounds  of  steam.  We. can  use  a  flash 
of  lightning  for  a  common  carrier.  But  we  cannot  overmaster 
the  workings  of  human  nature. 


HISTORY   OF   GRANTS 


UNDER 


THE    GREAT    COUNCIL    FOR   NEW    ENGLAND. 


BY    SAMUEL    F.    HAVEN. 


HISTORY   OF   GRANTS 


UNDER 


THE  GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND. 


THE  subject  assigned  to  me  for  a  lecture  to-night  is,  "  History 
of  Grants  under  the  Great  Council  for  New  England." 
However  important  this  may  be  in  a  historical  point  of  view, 
so  far  as  pleasurable  interest  is  concerned  it  certainly  has  a  rather 
dry  and  unpromising  aspect. 

Moreover,  it  was  said  of  this  Great  Council  for  New  England, 
by  the  learned  Dr.  Belknap,  after  he  had  tried  in  vain  to  harmo 
nize  their  proceedings,  that  — 

"  Either  from  the  jarring  interests  of  the  members,  or  their  indistinct 
knowledge  of  the  country,  or  their  inattention  to  business,  or  some  other 
cause  which  does  not  fully  appear,  their  affairs  were  transacted  in  a  con 
fused  manner  from  the  beginning ;  and  the  grants  which  they  made  were 
so  inaccurately  described,  and  interfered  so  much  with  each  other,  as  to 
occasion  difficulties  and  controversies,  some  of  which  are  not  yet  ended." 

So,  too,  Governor  Sullivan  in  his  work  on  "  Land  Titles  in 
Massachusetts  "  declares  that  the  legislative  acts  of  the  Council 
for  New  England  and  their  judicial  determinations  "  were  but  a 
chain  of  blunders ;  "  and  "  their  grants,  from  the  want  of  an  ac 
curate  knowledge  of  the  geography  of  the  territory,  were  but  a 
course  of  confusion." 

Possibly,  it  was  with  the  hope  of  obtaining  additional  light 
upon  these  obscurities  and  perplexities,  to  the  extent  of  recon 
ciling  apparent  discrepancies,  that  the  subject  was  selected'  for 
treatment  in  this  series  of  historical  lectures.  But  intricacies 
which  learned  historians  and  acute  lawyers  have  failed  to  eluci 
date,  it  may  be  presumed  are  not  susceptible  of  a  distinct  and 

9 


130  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER  THE 

definite  solution,  such  as  Courts  require  for  the  establishment  of 
a  title  to  property ;  and  we  may  be  compelled  to  find  in  a  nar 
rative  of  the  circumstances  under  which  they  had  their  origin 
their  only  reasonable  explanation. 

You  will  therefore  be  spared  a  technical  dissertation  upon 
charters,  patents,  grants,  and  other  methods  of  conveying  terri 
torial  rights,  and  be  asked  to  listen  to  a  relation  of  the  rise,  the 
character,  the  operations,  and  the  end  of  the  great  corpora 
tion  in  England  created  by  James  I.  on  the  3d  of  November, 
1620,  consisting  of  forty  noblemen,  knights,  and  gentlemen,  and 
called  "  The  Council  established  at  Plymouth,  in  the  County  of 
Devon,  for  the  Planting,  Ruling,  and  Governing  of  New  England 
in  America." 

It  will  be  necessary  to  go  back  a  little ;  not  indeed  to  the  days 
of  Adam  and  Eve,  as  did  our  distinguished  New  England  chro- 
nologer,  Dr.  Prince,  who  devoted  so  much  time  and  space  to  the 
preliminary  annals  of  the  world,  that  he  died  before  completing 
those  of  this  limited  portion  of  the  globe,  which  were  the  real 
object  of  his  work,  —  but  to  the  beginning  of  England's  conven 
tional  title  to  American  possessions.  It  was  a  conventional  title, 
inasmuch  as  it  rested  upon  an  understanding  among  the  so-called 
Christian  powers,  that  the  rights  of  nations  and  peoples,  who  were 
not  at  least  nominally  Christian,  should  be  entirely  disregarded. 
The  sovereigns  of  Europe  carried  out  in  practice  the  principle 
which  the  Puritans  of  Cromwell's  parliament  were  said  to  have 
asserted  in  theory,  and  apparently  regarded  the  scripture  promise 
that  the  saints  shall  inherit  the  earth  as  a  mere  statement  of  their 
own  just  prerogative.  Among  Catholics,  the  Pope,  as  an  inspired 
administrator,  distributed  newly  discovered  regions  according  to 
his  inclination  and  infallible  discretion.  His  assignments  of  con 
tinents  and  seas  by  the  boundaries  of  latitude  and  longitude 
were  valid  in  Spain  and  Portugal  and  France ;  but  in  England 
the  King,  when  he  had  become  also  the  head  of  a  church,  claimed 
authority  to  empower  his  subjects  to  discover  "  remote,  heathen, 
and  barbarous  lands,  not  actually  possessed  of  any  Christian 
prince  or  people,  and  the  same  to  hold,  occupy,  and  enjoy,  with 
all  commodities,  jurisdictions,  and  royalties,  both  by  sea  and 
land ; "  of  course,  in  subordination  to  his  own  paramount  author 
ity,  but  with  no  reference  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  pontiff. 


GREAT   COUNCIL   FOB  NEW   ENGLAND.  131 

John  and  Sebastian  Cabot  were  commissioned,  in  like  phra 
seology,  by  Henry  VIL,  "  to  seek  out  countries  or  provinces  of 
the  heathen  and  infidels,  wherever  situated,  hitherto  unknown 
to  all  Christians,  and  to  subdue  and  possess  them  as  his  sub 
jects."  If  their  discoveries  had  been  followed  at  once  by  pos 
session,  the  papal  sanction  might  have  been  deemed  essential  to 
a  sound  title ;  but  England  had  long  been  a  Protestant  country 
before  steps  were  taken  to  maintain  her  claims  to  a  portion  of 
the  New  World.  Remote  events,  like  distant  objects,  are  apt  to 
seem  crowded  together,  for  want  of  a  perspective  to  make  the 
intervals  which  separate  them  evident  to  our  perceptions.  Thus 
we  often  fail  to  realize  the  duration  of  uneventful  periods  of 
history  which  come  between  the  strifes  and  commotions,  or 
other  great  occurrences  which  chiefly  occupy  the  attention  of 
both  the  historian  and  his  reader.  From  A.D.  1495,  the  date 
of  the  commission  to  the  Cabots,  to  A.D.  1578,  the  date  of  the 
letters  patent  to  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  under  which  possession 
was  first  taken  for  the  English  crown,  the  lapse  of  time  exceeds 
that  of  two  generations  of  men,  as  these  are  usually  estimated. 

Meanwhile,  circumstances  were  silently  and  indirectly,  as  well 
as  slowly,  preparing  for  the  settlement  of  this  portion  of  the 
American  continent.  Unrecorded  voyages  were  annually  made 
to  our  coasts  for  fish  by  the  Spaniards,  Portuguese,  and  French ; 
the  fasts  of  the  church  causing  a  large  demand  for  that  article 
of  food  in  Catholic  countries.  The  people  bordering  on  the  Bay 
of  Biscay  were  hereditary  fishermen.  Their  ancestors  had  cap 
tured  whales  in  their  own  tempestuous  sea ;  and  Biscayans,  or 
Itasques,  as  they  were  more  frequently  termed,  were  in  great  re 
quest  as  experts  for  the  fisheries  at  Newfoundland,  and  along  the 
shores  of  New  England.  They  professed  to  believe  that  their 
countrymen  visited  the  same  fishing-grounds  before  Columbus 
crossed  the  ocean.  The  business  was  so  lucrative  that  the  re 
ports  first  brought  home  by  the  Cabots  of  the  great  abundance 
of  codfish  in  those  regions  produced  an  excitement  among  the 
people  engaged  in  that  trade,  not  unlike  that  which  rumors  of 
gold  in  California  and  Australia  have  created  in  more  recent 
times. 

No  account  has  been  preserved  of  the  commencement  of  fishing 
voyages  to  the  American  seas ;  but  they  can  be  traced  back  to 


132  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER   THE 

within  half  a  dozen  years  of  the  return  of  the  Cabots;  and 
twelve  or  fifteen  years  later  as  many  as  fifty  vessels  of  different 
nations  were  employed  on  the  Grand  Banks. 

Of  such  voyages  no  journal  was  kept  and  no  history  was  writ 
ten  ;  because  it  was  the  policy  of  the  adventurers  to  keep  these 
prolific  sources  of  wealth,  as  much  as  possible,  from  attracting 
the  attention  of  competitors. 

The  presence  of  European  vessels  on  our  shores,  in  consider 
able  numbers,  a  century  before  the  arrival  of  the  Pilgrims,  may 
account  for  traditions  among  the  natives,  and  the  occasional  dis 
covery  of  articles  of  European  manufacture  in  their  graves,  that 
have  been  supposed  to  point  to  the  visits  of  the  Northmen  at 
far  more  distant  periods.1 

A  process  of  preparation  not  less  marked  and  effective  was  at 
the  same  time  going  on  in  England  itself.  Until  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIL,  that  kingdom  had  been  behind  all  other  European 
States  in  mercantile  enterprise.  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland, 
and  even  Germany,  were  before  her  in  commerce  or  manufac 
tures.  The  fluctuations  of  trade,  in  the  removal  of  its  seats  from 
one  place  or  country  to  another,  are  among  the  marvels  and  curi 
osities  of  history.  The  chief  wonders  of  the  world  —  the  costly 
and  gigantic  remains  of  decayed  cities,  where  now  all  is  silence 
and  desolation  —  are  the  fruits  of  accumulated  capital  in  what 
were  once  the  forwarding  and  distributing  stations  of  trade. 
Thebes,  Babylon,  Nineveh,  Palmyra,  Tyre,  and  Carthage  were 
great  and  magnificent,  because,  as  the  prophet  Nahum  saith  of 
Nineveh,  "  They  multiplied  their  merchants  above  the  stars  of 
heaven." 

Wherever  traffic  has  found  a  seat  and  centre,  art,  architecture, 
enterprise,  and  political  power  have  been  its  inevitable  fruits.  The 
growth  and  decay  of  these  local  influences,  and  their  distribution 
in  turn  among  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  though  springing  from 
natural  causes,  belong  no  less  to  the  mysterious  operations  of 
Providence.  It  was  the  commercial  decline  of  Italy  (the  indus 
trial  Italy  of  the  Middle  Ages),  whose  prodigal  remains  of 
aesthetic  splendor  are  the  memorials  of  her  merchant  princes,  that 

1  When  Captain  John  Smith  visited  the  Susquehanna  Indians,  in  1608,  they  had 
utensils  of  iron  and  brass,  which,  by  their  own  account,  originally  came  from  the 
French  of  Canada. 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  133 

carried  Venetian  navigators  to  England,  among  them  the  family 
of  Cabots,  seeking  employment  for  the  exercise  of  their  native 
arts.1  At  the  same  time,  the  incessant  wars  upon  the  continent 
were  driving  tradesmen  and  manufacturers  from  the  free  cities 
of  central  Europe,  which  they  had  built  up  and  enriched ;  many 
of  whom  took  refuge  in  the  British  Isles,  which  thus  easily 
acquired  the  advantages  of  skill  and  experience  in  the  production 
and  sale  of  important  fabrics.  England's  opportunity  had  come. 
Though  not  lying  in  the  course  of  the  world's  great  thorough 
fares,  yet,  by  insular  position,  favorably  formed  for  maritime 
pursuits,  her  chances  of  wealth  and  power  from  the  magic 
agencies  of  commerce  had  at  length  arrived.  Through  the 
reigns  of  Henry  VII.,  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI.,  and  the  bloody 
Mary,  to  their  full  fruition  in  the  Augustan  era  of  Queen  Eliza 
beth,  these  causes  were  not  only  increasing  the  riches,  but 
developing  wonderfully  the  mental  and  physical  character  and 
capacities  of  the  British  people.  More  independent,  politically 
and  socially,  than  their  neighbors  in  Holland,  they  shared  with 
them  the  accumulation  of  the  precious  metals  which  flowed 
from  American  mines,  through  Spain  and  Portugal,  to  the  chief 
marts  of  trade,  and  experienced  the  stimulating  effects  of  capital 
in  all  departments  of  life  and  action.  Enterprise,  extravagance, 
ambition,  emulation,  greed,  were  the  healthy  and  unhealthy 
consequences  of  a  prosperous  and  excited  community. 

The  tendency  to  a  sort  of  theatrical  exaggeration  in  sentiment 
and  manners  that  followed  upon  this  development  of  physical 
resources  and  mental  energies  was  perhaps  a  natural  result. 
Man  has  often  been  declared  to  be  the  product  of  the  pecu 
liarities  of  the  period  in  which  he  was  born.  Well  might 
Shakespeare  say  of  his  own  time,  "  All  the  world  is  a  stage,  and 
all  the  men  and  women  are  mere  players ; "  for  the  whole  reign 
of  Elizabeth  was  a  theatrical  pageant,  where  Leicester  and 
Essex,  Sidney,  Southampton,  and  Raleigh,  and  not  excepting 
Bacon,  the  representative  of  philosophy,  personated  the  various 
characters  of  an  heroic  drama ;  while  the  many-sided  Shake- 

1  The  superior  naval  advancement  of  Italy  at  that  period  is  illustrated  by  the 
fact,  that  the  leaders  of  discovery  in  the  western  hemisphere  —  Columbus  in  the 
service  of  Spain,  Cabot  in  the  service  of  England,  Vespucius  in  the  service  of  Portu 
gal,  and  Verazzano  in  the  service  of  France  —  were  Italians. 


134  HISTORY  OF  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 

speare  was  himself  a  dramatic  embodiment  of  the  entire  intel 
lectual  expansion  of  his  age. 

There  lived  then  a  certain  remarkable  woman,  —  remarkable 
for  having  two  sons  of  different  fathers,  whose  heroic  tempera 
ment  and  versatile  talents  must  have  been  derived  from  their 
common  mother.  The  half-brothers,  Humphrey  Gilbert  and 
Walter  Raleigh,  were  more  alike  in  tastes  and  genius  than  is 
often  seen  in  a  nearer  relationship.  It  was  the  blood  of  the 
Cham23ernons,  —  a  name  that  has  a  place  of  its  own  in  our 
colonial  history, —  and  not  that  of  the  Gilberts  or  Raldglis, 
which  made  them  what  they  were. 

To  these  two  men,  of  honorable  birth  and  social  standing, 
each  of  whom  combined  the  habits  and  qualities  of  a  soldier 
with  those  of  a  studious  scholar,  and  could  handle  with  equal 
skill  the  pen  and  the  sword,  we  owe  it  that  this  New  England 
where  we  live,  and  this  entire  Union  of  vigorous  States,  are  not 
dependencies  of  France  or  Spain,  or  such  as  are  those  feeble 
provinces  which  sprang  from  French  or  Spanish  colonization. 

Whatever  constructive  right  or  title  England  had  acquired  by 
the  discoveries  of  the  Cabots,  a  -little  more  delay,  and  their 
assertion  would  have  been  no  longer  practicable,  except  at  the 
point  of  the  sword.  It  was  Gilbert  and  Raleigh  who,  in  the 
nick  of  time,  gave  this  direction  to  British  energies ;  and  appar 
ently  nothing  but  the  grand  ideas  and  exhaustless  resolution  of 
these  great  minds,  and  their  inspiring  influence  arnid  disappoint 
ment  and  disaster,  saved  an  indefinite  and  uncertain  claim  by 
means  of  a  positive  and  substantial  possession. 

The  rival  claims  of  the  leading  European  powers,  at  this 
juncture,  to  the  soil  of  our  continent  north  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
were  not  better  defined,  or  more  easy  of  satisfactory  adjustment 
upon  legal  and  equitable  principles,  than  are  those  of  the 
grantees  of  the  Great  Council  for  New  England,  which  are 
now  the  particular  subject  of  consideration.  The  rules  and  pre 
cedents  of  national  and  international  law  furnish  a  convenient 
phraseology  for  the  discussion  of  questions  relating  to  territorial 
ownership  and  boundaries,  as  phrenology  provides  a  convenient 
nomenclature  for  describing  the  faculties  of  the  mind  although 
it  may  not  be  admitted  to  determine  their  actual  position  and 
limits.  In  larger  divisions  of  land,  even  where  private  citizens 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  135 

alone  are  concerned,  the  most  tenacious  grasp  is  apt  ultimately 
to  acquire  the  legal  title.  Time  heals  defects,  and  the  pertina 
cious  possessor  finds  his  right  to  hold  and  convey  secured  by 
circumstances,  and  protected  by  judicial  tribunals. 

The  English  jurists  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  maintained,  that 
discovery  and  possession  united  could  alone  give  a  valid  title  to 
a  new  country.  But  how  far  asunder  in  point  of  time  might 
these  acts  be,  and  yet  retain  their  virtue  when  brought  together? 
And  what  if  another  discovery  and  a  possession  came  between 
them  ?  Will  a  possession  fairly  taken,  but  not  continued  by 
uninterrupted  occupancy,  avail  for  a  completion  of  title  ? 

The  answers  to  these  questions  are  not  so  distinctly  given  as 
to  enable  us  to  found  upon  them,  clearly,  the  right  of  the  British 
crown  to  issue  patents  and  charters,  empowering  its  subjects  to 
hold  and  distribute  the  regions  which,  under  the  names  of  Vir 
ginia  and  New  England,  embraced  a  large  portion  of  the  North 
American  continent. 

John  and  Sebastian  Cabot  discovered,  and  to  some  extent 
explored,  the  American  coast  (A.  D.  1497-8)  from  Labrador  to 
the  Car  oh' n  as,  more  than  a  year  before  the  continent  had  been 
seen  by  Columbus  or  by  Americus  Vespucius ;  but  the  subjects 
of  other  powers  had  visited  these  shores  familiarly,  and  some  of 
them  had  taken  formal  possession  in  the  name  of  their  sovereign, 
long  before  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  came  to  Newfoundland  in 
1583. 

On  behalf  of  the  King  of  Portugal,  Cortereal  ranged  the 
northern  coast  only  two  years  later  than  the  Cabots,  and  gave 
the  name  Labrador  to  the  country  still  so  called. 

A  map  of  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  the  neighboring 
country  was  made  by  the  French,  from  their  own  observations, 
as  early  as  1507. 

It  is  said,  that  in  1522  there  were  fifty  houses  at  Newfound 
land  occupied  by  people  of  different  nations.  There  were  prob 
ably  some  English  among  them,  although  the  English  fisheries 
were  then  chiefly  in  the  direction  of  Iceland. 

In  1524,  an  expedition  for  discovery  was  sent  by  Francis  I.  of 
France,  under  John  De  Verazzano,  a  Florentine,  wha  explored 
our  coast  from  the  Carolinas  to  Newfoundland,  as  the  Cabots 
had  done,  but  with  more  particularity,  and  called  the  country 


136  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER  THE 

NEW  FRANCE;  and  in  the  same  year  Stephen  Gomez,  in  the 
service  of  Spain,  sailed  from  Florida  to  Cape  Race ;  his  object 
being,  as  was  then  the  case  with  almost  all  the  navigators  that 
preceded  him  here,  to  find  a  passage  through  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  then  called  the  South  Sea. 

After  this,  while  the  Spaniards  were  seeking  a  foothold  in 
Florida,  the  French,  in  a  series  of  expeditions  from  1534  to 
1542,  with  Cartier  as  chief  leader,  were,  on  behalf  of  France, 
erecting  monuments  in  token  of  possession,  and  planting  colo 
nies,  in  the  region  of  the  gulf  of  St.  Lawrence.  Having  endured 
several  seasons  of  trial  and  suffering,  these  colonies  came  to  an 
end,  as  settlements ;  leaving,  it  is  claimed,  some  of  their  members 
still  in  the  country.  With  the  exception  of  a  disastrous  ex 
pedition  in  1549,  when  Roberval  and  a  numerous  train  of 
adventurers  were  supposed  to  have  perished  at  sea,  no  farther 
measures  were  taken  by  the  French  to  re-establish  themselves  in 
the  North  till  near  the  close  of  that  century. 

Thus,  while  England  had  neglected  to  maintain  her  rights  as 
a  discoverer,  Spain,  Portugal,  and  France  had  explored  the 
same  parts  of  North  America;  and  France  had  planted  her 
subjects  on  the  soil,  without  formal  remonstrance,  so  far  as  is 
known,  from  any  other  power.  The  English  fishery  at  Newfound 
land  had  become  important  in  1548;  but  no  record  has  been 
preserved  of  any  attempt  at  colonization. 

This  negligence,  or  indifference,  was  first  broken  by  Sir 
Humphrey  Gilbert.  He  had  written  a  discourse  to  show  the 
probability  of  a  passage  by  the  north-west  to  India,  which  may 
have  promoted  the  voyage  of  Frobisher  to  the  Arctic  Sea  in 
1576 ;  and,  in  1578,  he  received  from  Queen  Elizabeth  authority 
to  discover  and  take  possession  of  remote  and  barbarous  lands 
unoccupied  by  any  Christian  prince  or  people,  as  the  Cabots  had 
been  empowered  to  do  by  Henry  VII.  It  is  noticeable,  that  the 
patent  to  Gilbert  contains  no  allusion  to  the  Cabots,  or  to  any 
rights  of  the  crown  derived  from  former  discoveries.  For  aught 
that  appears  in  the  instrument  itself,  this  was  an  independent 
and  original  enterprise  for  discovery  and  conquest,  with  a  right 
on  the  part  of  Gilbert  to  possess  and  govern  the  discovered  and 
conquered  lands  in  subordination  to  the  Queen.  But  such  was 
not  the  view  of  the  grantee  himself.  He  did  not  survive  to  be 


GREAT   COUNCIL   FOR   NEW   ENGLAND.  137 

his  own  historian ;  but  we  learn  from  the  narrative  of  Edward 
Haies,  "  a  principall  actour  in  the  same  voyage,"  — 

1st,  That  the  enterprise  of  Gilbert  was  based  upon  the  con 
sideration,  that  "John  Cabot,  the  father,  and  Sebastian,  his  son, 
an  Englishman  born,  were  the  first  finders  out  of  all  that  great 
tract  of  land  stretching  from  the  Cape  of  Florida  unto  those 
Islands  which  we  now  call  the  Newfoundland ;  all  of  which 
they  brought  and  annexed  unto  the  crown  of  England." 

2d,  That  if  a  man's  motives  "  be  derived  from  a  virtuous  and 
heroical  mind,  preferring  chiefly  the  honor  of  God,  compassion 
of  poor  infidels  captived  by  the  devil,  tyrannizing  in  most 
wonderful  and  dreadful  manner  Over  their  bodies  and  souls,"  and 
other  honorable  purposes  specified,  "  God  will  assist  such  an 
actor  beyond  the  expectation  of  man."  Especially  as,  "  in  this 
last  age  of  the  world,  the  time  is  complete  for  receiving  also 
these  Gentiles  into  his  mercy  ;  ...  it  seeming  probable  by  the 
event  of  precedent  attempts  made  by  the  Spaniards  and  French 
sundry  times,  that  the  country  lying  North  of  Florida  God  hath 
reserved  to  be  reduced  unto  Christian  civilization  by  the  English 
.nation." 

"  Then  seeing  the  English  nation  only  hath  right  unto  these  countries 
of  America,  from  the*  Cape  of  Florida  northward,  by  the  privilege  of 
first  discovery,  .  .  .  which  right  also  see^ieth  strongly  defended  on  our 
behalf  by  the  powerful  hand  of  almighty  God,  withstanding  the  enter 
prises  of  other  nations ;  it  may  greatly  encourage  us  upon  so  just 
ground,  as  is  our  right,  and  upon  so  sacred  an  intent  as  to  plant  religion, 
to  prosecute  effectually  the  full  possession  of  these  so  ample  and  pleasant 
countries  appertaining  unto  the  crown  of  England ;  the  same  (as  is  to  be 
conjectured  by  infallible  arguments  of  the  world's  end  approaching)  being 
now  arrived  unto  the  time  by  God  prescribed  of  their  vocation,  if  ever 
their  calling  unto  the  knowledge  of  God  may  be  expected." 

This  conviction,  that  the  end  of  the  world  was  near,  was  the 
source  of  much  of  the  heroic  adventure,  and  the  excuse  for 
much  of  the  merciless  barbarity  towards  the  natives,  which 
attended  the  occupation  of  this  continent  by  Europeans.  The 
WORD  was  first  to  be  preached  among  all  nations  ;  and  soldiers 
and  priests  alike  believed  themselves  agents  of  heaven  in  the 
fulfilment  of  prophecy,  when,  acting  under  papal  or  royal  au 
thority,  they  compelled  the  submission  of  heathen  nations  to  the 


138  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER  THE 

Christian  faith  by  violence  and  bloodshed.  Columbus  thought 
he  had  ascertained  by  calculation,  that  there  remained  but  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  from  his  time  before  the  final  catastrophe. 
"  My  enterprise,"  said  he,  "  has  accomplished  simply  that  which 
the  prophet  Isaiah  had  predicted,  —  that,  before  the  end  of  the 
world,  the  gospel  should  be  preached  upon  all  the  earth,  and  the 
Holy  City  be  restored  to  the  church."  Nearly  ninety  years  of 
that  remnant  of  time  had  expired,  when,  influenced  by  similar 
sentiments,  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  set  forth  on  a  similar  errand. 

It  was  his  intention  to  take  possession  at  Newfoundland  for 
the  northern  portion  of  the  country,  and  at  some  point  nearer 
Florida  for  the  southern  portion  of  the  English  claim ;  going 
first  to  Newfoundland  to  gain  the  advantage  of  a  favorable 
season  of  the  year,  and  the  period  when  fishing  vessels  were 
most  numerous  at  that  station.  The  ships  of  different  nations 
then  engaged  in  that  employment,  were  one  hundred  from  Spain, 
fifty  from  Portugal,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  from  France,  to 
fifty  from  England.  But  England  had  become  full-blooded  and 
dangerous,  and  already  aspired  to  rule  the  seas.  She  had  the 
best  ships,  which,  as  Haies  expresses  it,  were  "  admirals "  over 
the  rest,  and  controlled  the  harbors. 

Gilbert  landed,  and  calling  together  the  merchants  and  ship 
masters  of  the  several  nations,  took  possession  with  all  the 
prescribed  formalities.  He  promulgated  laws,  to  which  the 
people,  by  general  voice,  promised  obedience  ;  and  made  grants 
of  land,  the  recipients  covenanting  to  pay  an  annual  rent,  and 
yearly  to  maintain  possession  of  the  same  by  themselves  or  their 
assigns  as  his  representatives. 

We  know  that  Gilbert  was  lost  at  sea,  without  having  been 
able  to  make  a  like  demonstration  elsewhere.  But  his  proceed 
ings  at  Newfoundland  have  been  regarded  by  all  English  writers 
as  substantiating  the  English  title  to  the  whole  country.  No 
distinct  colony  was  left  behind  him  ;  but  the  British  domination 
continued  to  be  recognized  by  the  mixed  population  on  the 
shore,  and  was,  when  necessary,  enforced  by  summary  process 
among  the  ships. 

On  learning  the  death  of  his  heroic  half-brother,  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  his  partner  in  the  enterprise,  immediately  obtained  a 
similar  commission  and  patent  in  his  own  name,  and  sought  to 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  139 

complete  their  purpose  by  planting  a  colony  at  the  South.  It 
was  his  fortune,  too,  to  fail  in  that  part  of  his  design  which  con 
templated  the  establishment  of  settlements  under  his  own  rule 
and  tributary  to  himself;  but  he  was  the  first  to  possess  and 
occupy  the  soil  of  Virginia ;  and,  although  interrupted  for  a 
time,  the  occupancy  of  British  subjects  in  that  region  became 
permanent,  without  the  interference  of  rival  attempts  at  coloniza 
tion. 

It  was  under  such  circumstances,  and  in  such  manner,  that 
the  title  of  England,  be  it  good  or  bad,  to  a  portion  of  our  con 
tinent,  was  originally  acquired  and  maintained. 

It  seemed  to  be  desirable  to  refer  to  the  nature  of  that  title, 
to  the  civil  condition  of  England,  to  the  operations  of  trade  and 
fishery,  and  to  the  colonial  projects  which  preceded  the  incor 
poration  of  that  semi-commercial,  semi-political  body  known  as 
the  Great  Council  for  New  England.  For  it  was  the  wealth  of 
the  mercantile  classes,  resulting  in  some  degree  from  the  dis 
covery  of  new  sources  and  new  courses  of  trade  in  distant 
regions,  that  made  the  nobility  and  gentry  eager  to  partake  of 
their  gains.  The  "  Fellowship  of  English  Merchants  for  the 
Discovery  of  New  Trades,"  sometimes  called  also  the  Muscovy 
or  Russian  Company,  which  had  a  charter  as  early  as  1554—5, 
had  been  remarkably  successful.  Immense  fortunes,  like  those 
of  Sir  Thomas  Smith  and  Sir  John  Wolstenholm,  and  others 
who  took  part  in  the  Virginia  enterprises,  had  been  realized  by 
merchants  who  became  knights  and  baronets.  The  wealth  of 
the  House  of  Commons  far  exceeded  that  of  the  House  of  Lords. 
The  great  increase  of  extravagance  in  private  expenditure  had 
become  a  serious  drain  upon  the  resources  of  the  nobility ;  and 
it  was  the  hope  of  profit  from  the  fur  trade  and  fisheries,  com 
bined  with  the  advantage  and  dignity  of  territorial  proprietor 
ship,  that  caused  the  formation  and  governed  the  conduct  of  the 
New-England  Company,  while  ignorance  of  business  and  em 
barrassments  arising  from  conflicting  claims,  domestic  and  for 
eign,  brought  it  to  an  end. 

There  is  another  preliminary  fact,  which  is  of  great  interest 
to  New  England,  and  especially  to  Massachusetts.  At  the 
beginning  of  a  new  century,  A.  D.  1602,  Raleigh's  colonies  had 
disappeared,  and  all  traces  of  them  were  lost.  Dr.  Holmes,  in 


140  HISTORY  OF  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 

his  Annals,  remarks,  that  then  "in  North  America  north  of 
Mexico  not  a  single  European  family  could  be  found."  .  If  we 
understand  by  family  a  household  of  men,  women,  and  children, 
this  statement  may  be  nearly  correct;  and  yet  it  is  estimated 
that  there  were  at  that  time,  at  Newfoundland,  as  many  as  ten 
thousand  men  and  boys  employed  on  board  and  on  shore  in  the 
business  of  taking  and  curing  fish.  Colonization,  however,  had 
been  virtually  abandoned  in  despair.  At  that  critical  period,  it 
was  revived  by  two  men  whose  service  to  this  country  in  that 
respect  has  never  been  properly  or  sufficiently  acknowledged. 
These  were  the  Earl  of  Southampton  and  Bartholomew  Gos- 
nold  :  the  first,  the  friend  and  patron  of  Shakespeare,  and  the 
subject  of  many  of  his  sonnets,  who  had  impaired  his  fortune  by 
his  liberality  to  men  of  letters  ;  the  other,  an  intrepid  mariner 
from  the  west  of  England,  who  became  the  leading  spirit,  and 
one  of  the  first  victims,  of  the  attempt  to  renew  the  settlements 
of  Virginia. 

You  are  all  familiar  with  the  story  of  Gosnold's  visit  to 
Massachusetts  Bay,  in  1602;  and  it  hardly  needs  to  be  stated, 
that  the  expedition  was  undertaken  with  the  consent  of  Raleigh, 
as  coming  within  his  jurisdiction ;  that  the  cost  was  chiefly 
defrayed  by  the  Earl  of  Southampton ;  that  the  design  of  the 
voyage  was  to  find  a  direct  and  shorter  way  across  the  ocean 
and  a  proper  seat  for  a  plantation ;  that  the  company  consisted 
of  thirty-two  men,  twenty  of  whom  were  to  remain  in  the 
country ;  that,  in  fact,  they  were  the  first  to  take  a  straight  course 
across  the  Atlantic,  instead  of  the  usual  passage  to  Virginia  by 
the  West  Indies ;  that  they  reached  land  near  Salem  Harbor ; 
that  from  them  came  the  familiar  names  of  Cape  Cod,  Martha's 
Vineyard,  the  Elizabeth  Islands,  &c. ;  and  that  they  built  a  fort 
at  Cuttyhunk  in  Buzzard's  Bay.  They  were  delighted  with  the 
country,  but  were  compelled  to  return  home  for  larger  supplies. 
Before  they  could  come  back  better  provided  for  a  permanent 
settlement,  Queen  Elizabeth  died,  Raleigh  was  thrown  into 
prison  by  her  successor,  and  all  schemes  for  American  coloniza 
tion  were  of  necessity  to  be  abandoned,  or  organized  upon  a  new 
basis  under  a  new  sovereign  himself  destitute  of  energy  and 
enterprise.  Fortunately,  Gosnold  and  his  companions  were  not 
merely  men  of  action,  but  could  write  and  speak  as  well ;  and  to 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  141 

their  glowing  narratives  and  zealous  exertions,  aided  by  the 
famous  Hakluyt,  and  men  of  influence  at  Court,  historians 
ascribe  the  procurement  of  the  charter  of  1606,  from  which  the 
ultimate  settlement  of  the  United  States  and  the  resulting 
heritage  of  territorial  rights  are  to  be  dated. 

The  fact  of  Gosnold's  selection  of  our  own  coast  for  an 
intended  colony  is  sufficiently  well  known  ;  but  I  am  sure,  that 
the  characters  and  services  of  the  leaders  of  that  little  company 
are  not  sufficiently  understood  and  appreciated,  or,  instead 
of  the  farce  which  \vas  enacted  over  the  later  and  inconse 
quential  landing  and  brief  continuance  of  a  body  of  outlaws  on 
the  coast  of  Maine,  all  New  England  would  have  united  in  meas 
ures  to  honor  the  memory  of  the  real  founders  of  permanent 
habitation  and  indisputable  title  within  our  national  bounds. 

For  some  reason,  the  charter  of  1606  did  not  embrace  the 
whole  of  the  British  claim.  It  extended  no  farther  south  than 
the  present  limits  of  North  Carolina,  and  no  farther  north  than 
the  present  limits  of  the  State  of  Vermont;  that  is,  from  the 
thirty-fourth  to  the  forty-fifth  degree  of  latitude.  Within,  these 
bounds  there  were  to  be  two  colonies  under  separate  administra 
tions,  subject  to  a  paramount  administration  in  the  mother 
country.  The  southern  colony  could  plant  anywhere  between 
the  thirty-fourth  and  forty-first  degrees,  and  the  northern  colony, 
anywhere  between  the  thirty-eighth  and  forty-fifth  degrees; 
leaving  three  degrees,  or  the  space  from  the  southern  point  of 
Maryland  to  the  southern  point  of  Connecticut,  as  common 
ground. 

The  northern  company  had  need  of  hot  haste  in  choosing  a 
location;  as,  in  the  race  for  possession,  the  French  had  once 
more  taken  the  lead,  and  renewed  their  plans  of  founding  an 
American  empire.  Having  before  sent  over  a  ship-load  of  felons 
from  the  jails,  who  were  left  to  take  care  of  themselves  at  the 
Isle  of  Sables,  a  more  formidable  expedition  was  organized  in 
1603,  the  year  succeeding  Gosnold's  memorable  voyage.  Henry 
the  Great  being  then  King  of  France,  a  gentleman  of  his  house 
hold,  named  De  Monts,  received  from  him  a  patent  of  the  Ameri 
can  territory  from  the  fortieth  to  the  forty-sixth  degree  of  north 
latitude,  with  power,  as  lieutenant-general,  to  colonize  and  rule 
it.  It  will  be  noticed  that  this  grant  almost  exactly  covers  the 


142  HISTORY  OF  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 

territory  assigned  to  the  northern  colony  of  Virginia  by  the  Eng 
lish  charter  of  1606.  De  Monts  lost  no  time  in  entering  upon 
his  dominion;  and  he  and  his  followers  settled  themselves  in 
Nova  Scotia,  at  Monts  desert  (now  called  Mount  Desert),  and 
along  the  coast  of  Maine  as  far  as  the  Penobscot.  They  looked 
into  Boston  Harbor  in  search  of  a  more  genial  climate,  but 
were  repelled  by  the  hostile  attitude  of  the  natives. 

The  company  of  outlaws  which,  in  imitation  of  the  French, 
Chief-Justice  Popharn  sent  to  the  mouth  of  the  Sagadehoc  or 
Kennebec  River,  in  1607,  was  undoubtedly  intended  and  expected 
to  check  the  advances  of  that  nation.  It  not  only  failed,  but  its 
failure  paralyzed  the  energies  of  the  northern  company  of  Vir 
ginia  for  many  succeeding  years. 

That  portion  of  the  duplex  contrivance  of  James  I.  accom 
plished  nothing  important  of  itself  until,  after  much  opposition, 
a  separate  organization  and  charter  were  obtained  in  1620.  In 
the  mean  time,  its  twrin-brother,  at  Jamestown,  flourished,  after  a 
fashion ;  it  is  doubtful  whether  most  aided  or  hindered  by  the 
frequent  interference  of  the  English  monarch,  that  "  Dominie 
Sampson "  spoilt  into  a  king,  who  believed  himself  to  be  the 
fountain  of  wisdom,  not  less  than  the  fountain  of  honor.  It  was 
able,  in  1613,  to  fit  out  an  armed  vessel,  commanded  by  Captain 
Argall,  which  broke  up  the  French  settlements  at  Port  Royal, 
Mount  Desert,  &c.,  and  compelled  their  inhabitants  to  retire 
towards  Canada ;  protesting  all  the  while,  that  whatever  abstract 
rights  Great  Britain  might  possess,  if  any  there  were,  the  Vir 
ginia  charter  expressly  excepted  in  its  grants  regions  already 
occupied  by  any  Christian  prince  or  people;  they  (the  French) 
being  a  Christian  people,  in  occupation  of  the  places  from  which 
they  were  driven  two  years  before  the  Virginia  charter  was  made ; 
which  was  very  true. 

Upon  the  island  of  Manhattan  at  the  mouth  of  Hudson's  river, 
on  the  common  ground  of  the  two  so-called  Virginia  companies, 
the  Dutch  had  located  themselves,  claiming  title  from  its  discov 
ery  by  Hudson,  in  their  service.  While  returning  from  his 
expedition  against  the  French,  Captain  Argall  called  on  them 
also,  and  required  submission.  They  were  too  feeble  to  resist ; 
but  the  next  year  a  new  governor  came  from  Amsterdam,  with 
reinforcements,  asserting  the  right  of  Holland  to  the  country,  and 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  143 

refusing  the  tribute  which  his  predecessor  had  consented  to  pay 
to  the  English. 

It  was  to  this  inheritance,  of  not  undisputed  possessions,  to 
which  the  new  corporation,  styled  "  The  Council  established  at 
Plymouth,  in  the  County  of  Devon,  for  the  Planting,  Ruling,  and 
Governing  of  New  England  in  America,"  succeeded  on  the  3d 
of  November,  1620. 

The  charter,  after  referring  to  the  previous  charter  of  1606, 
and  the  changes  that  had  since  been  made  for  the  benefit  of  the 
southern  company,  states  that  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  and  other 
principal  adventurers  of  the  northern  company,  with  divers  per 
sons  of  quality  who  now  intend  to  be  their  associates,  resolving 
to  prosecute  their  designs  more  effectually,  and  intending  to  estab 
lish  fishery,  trade,  and  plantation,  within  the  precincts  of  the  said 
northern  company ;  for  that  purpose,  and  to  avoid  all  confusion 
and  difference  between  themselves  and  the  other  company, 
have  desired  to  be  made  a  distinct  body. 

It  proceeds  to  grant  to  the  persons  named,  the  territory  from 
the  fortieth  to  the  forty-eighth  degree  of  north  latitude  and 
through  the  main  land  from  sea  to  sea,  to  be  called  NEW  ENG 
LAND  ;  that  is,  from  the  latitude  of  Philadephia  to  the  middle  of 
Newfoundland,  and  through  all  that  width  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific;  varying  a  few  degrees  of  latitude  from  the  bounds 
prescribed  in  the  original  patent. 

They  were  to  be  one  body  politic  and  corporate,  to  consist  of 
forty  persons,  and  no  more,  with  perpetual  succession.  Vacan 
cies  were  to  be  filled  by  the  members.  They  were  empowered 
to  establish  laws  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England ;  and  to 
their  "  governors,  officers,  and  ministers,"  according  to  the  natural 
limits  of  their  offices,  was  given  authority  to  correct,  punish, 
pardon,  and  rule  all  English  subjects  that  should  become  colon 
ists,  according  to  the  laws  and  instructions  of  the  Council ;  and 
in  defect  thereof,  in  cases  of  necessity,  according  to  their  good 
discretions,  in  cases  criminal  and  capital  as  well  as  civil,  and 
both  marine  and  others.  Such  proceedings  to  be,  as  near  as 
conveniently  may  be,  agreeable  to  the  laws,  statutes,  government, 
and  policy,  of  the  realm  of  England.  The  continent,  from  the 
fortieth  to  the  forty-eighth  degree,  from  sea  to  sea,  was  absolutely 
given,  granted,  and  confirmed  to  the  said  Council  and  their  sue- 


144  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER   THE 

cessors,  to  be  holden,  as  of  the  manor  of  East  Greenwich,  in  free 
and  common  socage,1  as  distinguished  from  the  feudal  tenure 
of  personal  service ;  and  all  subjects  were  forbidden  to  trade  or 
fish  within  their  limits  without  a  license  from  the  Council  under 
seal. 

The  rank  and  personal  standing  of  the  grantees  corresponded 
to  the  extent  of  territory  and  the  magnitude  of  the  powers  be 
stowed  upon  them.  They  consisted  of  many  of  the  highest 
nobility  of  the  kingdom,  and  knights  and  gentlemen  of  promi 
nence  and  influence.  Their  aims  and  purposes  were  not  less  lofty 
and  aristocratic.  Upon  the  general  ground,  that  kings  did  first 
lay  the  foundations  of  their  monarchies,  by  reserving  to  them 
selves  the  sovereign  power  (as  fit  it  was),  and  dividing  their  king 
doms  into  counties,  baronies,  hundreds,  and  the  like,  they  say, — 

"  This  foundation  being  so  certain,  there  is  no  reason  for  us  to  vary 
from  it ;  and  therefore  we  resolve  to  build  our  edifices  upon  it.  So  as 
we  purpose  to  commit  the  management  of  our  whole  affairs  there  in 
general  unto  a  governor,  to  be  assisted  by  the  advice  and  counsel  of  so 
many  of  the  patentees  as  shall  be  there  resident,  together  with  the  officers 
of  State." 

Among  the  "  officers  of  State "  were  to  be  a  treasurer,  a 
marshal,  an  admiral,  and  a  master  of  ordnance.  Two  parts 
of  the  whole  territory  were  to  be  divided  among  the  patentees, 
and  the  other  third  reserved  for  public  uses;  but  the  entire 
territory  was  to  be  formed  into  counties,  baronies,  hundreds, 
and  the  like.  From  every  county  and  barony  deputies  were 
to  be  chosen  to  consult  upon  the  laws  to  be  framed,  and 
to  reform  any  notable  abuses.  Yet  these  are  not  to  be  assembled 
but  by  order  of  the  'President  and  Council  in  England,  "  who 
are  to  give  life  to  the  laws  so  to  be  made,  as  those  to  whom  of 
right  it  best  belongs."  The  counties  and  baronies  were  to  be 
governed  by  the  chief,  and  the  officers  under  him,  with  a  power 
of  high  and  low  justice,  subject  to  an  appeal,  in  some  cases,  to 
the  supreme  courts.  The  lords  of  counties  might  also  divide 
their  counties  into  manors  and  lordships,  with  courts  for  deter 
mining  petty  matters.  When  great  cities  had  grown  up,  they 

1  "  An  estate  of  the  highest  nature  that  a  subject  under  any  government  can 
possibly  receive  and  hold."  —  Sullican,  Land  Titles  in  Massachusetts,  p.  36. 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  145 

were  to  be  made  bodies  politic  to  govern  their  own  private 
affairs,  with  a  right  of  representation  by  deputies  or  burgesses.1 

There  was  a  provision  in  the  charter  for  its  renewal  and 
amendment,  if  changes  should  be  found  expedient  ;  and  meas 
ures  were  taken  for  a  new  patent,  omitting  the  requirement  that 
their  government  should  be  as  near  the  laws  of  England  as  may 
be,  and  inserting  authority  to  create  titles  of  honor,  and  estab 
lish  feudal  tenures. 

The  chief  managers  of  the  affairs  of  the  Council  were  Sir 
Ferdinando  Gorges,  a  friend  and  fellow-soldier  of  Raleigh,  who, 
ever  since  the  failure  of  the  Popham  enterprise  in  Maine,  had 
been  striving  to  settle  a  plantation  for  trade  and  fishing  there  on 
his  own  account  ;  Captain  John  Mason,  who  had  been  governor 
of  Newfoundland  ;  and  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  the  President. 
The  patents  issued  to  colonists,  whether  companies  or  single 
adventurers,  were  intended  to  conform  to  the  political  system 
they  had  adopted. 

The  influence  of  Gorges  is  seen  in  the  project,  which  was 
early  started,  of  laying  out  a  county,  on  the  general  behalf,  forty 
miles  square,  on  the  Kennebec  River,  and  building  a  great  city  at 
the  junction  of  the  rivers  Kennebec  and  Androscoggin.  Two 
kinds  of  patents  were  provided  for  by  the  Council  :  one  for 
private  undertakers  of  petty  plantations,  who  were  to  have  a 
certain  quantity  of  land  allotted  them  at  an  annual  rent,  with 
conditions  that  they  should  not  alienate  without  leave,  and 
should  settle  a  stated  number  of  persons  with  cattle,  &c.,  within 
a  definite  period  ;  the  other  for  such  parties  as  proposed  to  build 
towns,  with  large  numbers  of  people,  having  a  government  and 
magistrates,  who  were  to  have  power  to  frame  such  laws  and 
constitutions  as  the  majority  should  think  fit,  subordinate  to  the 
State  which  was  to  be  established,  "  until  other  order  should  be 
taken." 

The  grand  schemes  of  the  Council  were  not  destined  to 
experience  even  the  promise  of  success.  They  began  to  fail 
from  the  very  beginning  of  their  operations.  They  had  to  con 
tend  not  only  against  the  active  hostility  of  the  Southern  cor 
poration,  the  remonstrances  of  the  French,  and  the  pertinacity 


Brief  Relation  of  the  President  and  Council.    In  Mass,  Hist.  Soc.  Col.,  vol. 

10 


146  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER   THE 

of  the  Hollanders,  who  said  little,  while  they  encroached  upon 
the  fisheries,  and  inclined  to  take  possession  of  Connecticut 
River;  but  the  fishermen  and  fur-traders  of  England  itself, 
whose  rights,  become  prescriptive  by  long  enjoyment,  were  so 
summarily  interfered  with.  The  matter  was  taken  up  by  Parlia 
ment,  and  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  was  summoned  to  their  bar. 
His  argument,  that  the  enlargement  of  the  King's  dominions 
and  the  advancement  of  religion  were  of  more  consequence  than 
a  disorderly  course  of  fishing,  which,  except  for  their  plantation, 
would  soon  be  given  over,  (as  so  goodly  a  coast  could  not  long 
be  left  unpeopled  by  the  French,  Spanish,  or  Dutch),  if  it  did  not 
satisfy  the  Commons,  had  weight  with  the  King,  who  continued 
his  favor  and  protection. 

Gorges  was  to  be  the  Governor  of  the  new  State  ;  and,  in 
1623,  the  attempt  was  made  to  transfer  an  operative  govern 
ment  to  the  American  soil.  The  King  had  issued  a  proclama 
tion  enforcing  their  authority  ;  and  now  Robert  Gorges,  son  of 
Sir  Ferdinando,  was  sent  over  as  Lieutenant-General  and 
Governor  of  New  England,  with  a  suite  of  officers,  to  establish 
his  court  at  Massachusetts  Bay ;  where  a  tract  extending  ten 
miles  on  the  north-east  side  of  the  bay  had  been  granted  to  him 
personally  by  patent. 

This  proved  an  unfortunate  procedure.  It  increased  the 
hostile  feeling  in  England,  so  that,  in  a  list  of  public  grievances 
brought  forward  by  Parliament,  the  first  was  the  patent  for  New 
England.  This  public  declaration  of  the  House's  dislike, 
Gorges  tells  us,  "  shook  off  all  adventurers  from  the  plantation, 
and  made  many  of  the  patentees  quit  their  interest."  The  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor  and  his  military  and  ecclesiastical  officers  were 
advised  to  return  home ;  and  thus  the  plan  of  a  State  ruled  by 
a  Company,  such  as  we  have  seen  to  succeed  in  India,  failed  in 
New  England. 

The  other  purpose  of  the  Council,  viz.,  to  derive  a  profit 
from  the  fisheries  and  the  fur-trade,  with  a  view  also  to  the 
ultimate  advantages  of  territorial  proprietorship,  was  continued 
in  a  feeble  and  desultory  way.  The  great  object  was  to  get  the 
country  occupied  at  all  events,  and  grants  of  land  were  made 
with  a  singular  disregard  of  boundaries  and  of  previous  convey 
ance.  Gorges  and  Mason  were  the  only  persons  at  all  acquainted 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  147 

with  localities  here,  and  Gorges  had  become  despondent  and 
almost  desperate.  Many  members  of  the  corporation  gave  up 
their  partnership  rather  than  pay  their  shares  of  the  expenses ; 
and  it  was  difficult  to  find  others  to  take  their  places.  They 
tried  the  policy  of  dividing  the  whole  territory  among  their 
members,  in  severaity,  which  came  to  nothing.  Dissensions 
arose,  and  the  Earl  of  Warwick  withdrew  from  their  meetings, 
but  still  kept  the  great  seal,  and  evaded  the  calls  that  were 
made  upon  him  to  deliver  it  to  the  treasurer.  They  did  not 
know  what  patents  had  been  issued,  and  the  President  was 
"  entreated  to  direct  a  course  for  finding  out."  It  was  proposed 
to  send  over  a  surveyor  to  settle  limits,  and  commissioners  to  hear 
and  determine  grievances.  The  company  became  reduced  from 
forty  to  twenty-one,  notwithstanding  recruits  had  been  dili 
gently  sought  among  the  merchants.  Their  records  from 
November,  1632,  to  January,  1634,  are  wanting.  When  they 
begin  again,  the  only  remaining  objects  aimed  at  seem  to  have 
been  a  renewal  of  the  policy  of  assigning  to  members  distinct 
portions  of  the  region  embraced  in  their  charter,  and  a  surrender 
of  the  charter  to  the  King,  who  is  besought  to  graciously  ratify 
the  division,  and  confirm  it  by  his  own  decree.  This  he  does 
not  appear  ever  to  have  formally  done ;  and  the  Great  Council 
for  planting,  ruling,  and  governing  New  England,  came  to  an 
end  in  1635,  leaving  no  other  incumbrances  upon  the  soil  than 
such  as  arose  from  a  few  larger  patents,  which  depended  for  their 
force  and  validity  very  much  upon  the  royal  sanction  they  ulti 
mately  received,  and  some  grants  whose  proprietors  were  in  the 
country  engaged  in  actual  occupancy  or  management. 

Dr.  Palfrey,  in  his  history,  gives  a  list  of  twenty-four  grants 
made,  or  supposed  to  have  been  made,  by  the  Council  for  New 
England  before  the  final  partition  attempted  among  themselves. 
From  these  we  must  take  the  doubtful,  or  at  any  rate  futile, 
division  among  the  partners  alleged  to  have  been  effected  in 
1622  ;  also  the  Charter  of  Nova  Scotia  to  Sir  William  Alexander, 
which  came  directly  from  the  King  with  the  assent  of  the 
Council,  how  signified  does  not  appear;  also  the  supposed  grants 
to  Thompson,  Weston,  and  Wollaston,  which,  if  ever  formally 
executed,  were  soon  forfeited  or  abandoned,  like  some  others  that 
might  be  added  from  the  Records  ;  also  the  patent  of  Connecticut, 


148  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER  THE 

March  19, 1631,  which  proceeded  from  the  Earl  of  Warwick  per 
sonally,  and  was  apparently  founded  on  an  actual  or  expected  title 
passed,  or  to  be  passed,  from  the  Council  to  himself.  It  is  possi 
ble  that,  like  the  deed  of  Cape  Ann  to  the  Pilgrims,  by  Lord 
Sheffield  in  1623,  it  was  based  on  a  contemplated  division 
among  the  Council  that  was  never  perfected.1  Grants  were 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  made  that  were  not  drawn  up ;  and 
sometimes  the  execution,  long  delayed,  was  not  formally  com 
pleted,  so  that  the  Council  felt  at  liberty  to  confirm  or  reject 
them.  To  some  patents  there  were  conditions  attached ;  such  as 
rent,  and  the  introduction  of  settlers  within  a  certain  time,  to 
remain  a  certain  time,  which,  if  not  complied  with,  might 
occasion  a  forfeiture. 

Four  in  Dr.  Palfrey's  list  are  for  the  benefit  of  the  Pilgrims  at 
Plymouth ;  but  the  last  and  amplest  absorbed  or  cancelled  the 
others. 

The  first  act  of  this  nature  for  the  benefit  of  the  Pilgrims, 
was  dated  June  1,  1621.  The  other  grants  to  them  of  1622, 
1627,  and  1630,  enlarged  their  property  and  powers  at  Plymouth, 
and  gave  them  a  large  tract  of  land  on  the  Kennebec,  for  trade 
with  the  Indians ;  by  the  special  favor,  it  is  said,  of  the  Earl  of 
Warwick,  who  seems  to  have  been  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
the  Puritans. 

There  remain  to  be  mentioned  fourteen  grants  professedly 
emanating  from  the  Council:  — 

1st,  To  Captain  John  Mason,  March  9,  1622,  of  the  coast  and  islands 
between  Salem  River  and  the  Merrimack,  called  by  him  " Mariana"  It 
is  said  to  have  been  imperfectly  executed ;  and  was  disregarded  in  sub 
sequent  conveyances. 

2d,  To  Gorges  and  Mason  jointly,  Aug.  10,  1622,  of  the  country 
between  the  Merrimack  and  Kennebec  Rivers,  and  sixty  miles  inland  from 
their  mouths,  "  which  they  intend  to  name  the  PROVINCE  OF  MAINE." 

3d,  To  Robert  Gorges,  of  ten  miles  from  Boston  towards  Salem,  just 

1  Historians  have  stated,  without  giving  any  authority,  that  the  Connecticut 
territory  was  granted  by  the  Council  to  Warwick,  in  1630,  and  even  that  it  was 
confirmed  to  him  by  the  King.  But  the  Council  Records  show  that  "  a  rough 
draft"  of  a  patent  for  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  relating  to  the  same  territory, 
was  under  consideration  three  months  after  his  conveyance  to  Lord  Say  and 
Sele,  &c. 


GREAT   COUNCIL   FOB  NEW   ENGLAND.  149 

before  he  came  over  as  Lieutenant- Governor.  The  tenure  was  by  the 
sword,  or  per  gladium  comitatus. 

4th,  To  a  grandson  of  Sir  F.  Gorges  and  his  associates,  of  twenty- 
four  thousand  acres,  on  both  sides  of  York  River  in  Maine,  with  the 
islands  within  three  leagues  of  the  coast.  This  patent,  though  referred 
by  Gorges  to  1623,  was  not  executed  till  Dec.  2,  1631,  and  was  reissued 
the  following  March,  with  a  partial  change  of  associates.  The  considera 
tion  was  their  engaging  to  build  a  town. 

5th,  To  the  Massachusetts  Company,  which,  as  confirmed  by  the  royal 
charter,  March  4,  1629,  covered  Mason's  Mariana,  the  tract  of  Robert 
Gorges,  and  a  part  of  the  territory  of  Gorges  and  Mason ;  as  it  was  to 
embrace  the  country  from  three  miles  north  of  every  part  of  the  Merri- 
mack  River  to  three  miles  south  of  Charles  River. 

6th,  To  Captain  John  Mason,  Nov.  7,  1629,  from  the  middle  of  the 
Merrimack  River  to  the  middle  of  the  Piscataqua,  and  sixty  miles  inland 
from  their  mouths,  and  all  islands  within  five  leagues  of  the  coast; 
"  which  he  intends  to  name  NEW  HAMPSHIRE." 

A  series  of  grants  succeeded,  that  are  well  known  as  prolific 
of  suits  and  legal  questions  to  the  inhabitants  of  Maine.  These 
are  — 

1st,  The  joint  patents  of  what  are  now  the  towns  of  Saco  and 
Biddeford. 

2d,  The  Muscongus,  or  Lincoln  grant,  between  the  Muscongus  and  the 
Penobscot  Rivers,  which  became  the  famous  Waldo  patent. 

3d,  The  Lygonia,  or  Plough  patent,  of  forty  miles  square,  between 
Cape  Porpoise  and  Cape  Elizabeth,  including  the  now  City  of  Portland. 
The  date  and  the  grantees  are  both  uncertain.1 

4th,  The  Swamscot  patent,  covering  the  towns  of  Dover,  Durham, 
and  Stratham. 

5th,  The  Black  Point  grant  of  fifteen  hundred  acres  in  Scarborough. 

6th,  To  Gorges  and  Mason,  and  certain  associates,  of  lands  on  the 
Piscataqua,  where  some  of  their  people  had  settled. 

7th,  To  Richard  Bradshaw,  fifteen  hundred  acres  above  the  head  of 
"  Pashippscot,"  where  he  had  been  living.2 

8th,  To  Trelawney  and  Goodyear,  a  tract  between  the  Black  Point 
patent  and  the  Casco  River. 

9th,  The  well-known  Pemaquid  patent  of  twelve  thousand  acres,  Feb. 
29,  1632,  to  be  land  "not  lately  granted,  settled,  and  inhabited  by  any 
English." 

1  Willis,  in  Hist,  of  Portland. 

2  This  is  added  from  the  Council  Records. 


150  HISTORY   OF   GRANTS   UNDER  THE 

All  writers,  until  recently,  have  called  the  grant  of  Aug.  10, 
1622,  the  Laconia  grant.  It  was  not  till  a  copy  of  the  grant  of 
August,  1622,  was  obtained  from  England,  by  the  Maine  His 
torical  Society,  for  publication  in  1863,  that  the  error  became 
apparent.  The  real  Laconia  grant  was  dated  Nov.  17,  1629, 
and  conveyed  to  Gorges  and  Mason  "  all  those  lands  and  coun 
tries  bordering  upon  the  great  lake,  or  lakes  and  rivers  known 
by  the  name  of  the  River  and  Lake,  or  Rivers  and  Lakes  of  the 
Iroquois,"  meaning  thereby  Lake  Champlain.  The  final  and 
effective  grant  of  the  Province  of  Maine  was  to  Gorges,  directly 
from  the  King,  April  3, 1639,  when  the  Council  for  New  England 
had  ceased  to  exist. 

The  heirs  of  Gorges  and  Mason,  after  vain  efforts  to  sustain 
their  title  to  Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  ultimately  surrendered 
their  claims  for  a  moderate  consideration  ;  while  the  minor  tracts, 
in  process  of  time,  came  to  be  defined  and  adjusted  by  legis 
lative  and  judicial  interference. 

It  may  be  said,  with  probable  truth,  that,  but  for  the  success 
of  Massachusetts,  all  other  grants  or  patents  from  the  -Council 
would  have  come  to  nought ;  and  that,  on  one  side  the  French, 
and  on  the  other  the  Dutch,  or  else  the  original  natives,  would 
have  become  possessed  of  all  New  England.  It  was  so  as 
serted  when  Massachusetts  was  summoned  to  show  cause  why 
its  charter  should  not  be  revoked. 

Yet  the  charter  of  the  Massachusetts  Company  gave  the  death 
blow  to  the  Council  for  New  England.  In  connection  with  the 
litigious  attacks  of  the  Virginia  Company,  who  desired  to  break 
up  the  monopoly  of  the  fisheries,  and  the  protest  of  the  French 
ambassador,  it  is  assigned,  by  themselves,  as  the  principal  cause 
of  the  surrender  of  their  charter.  They  complained  that  their  own 
grant  to  this  company  had  been  unfairly  obtained  and  unreason 
ably  enlarged,  absorbing  the  tract  of  Robert  Gorges,  and  riding 
over  the  heads  of  all  those  lords  who  had  portions  assigned  them 
in  the  King's  presence;  that  its  members  wholly  excluded  them 
selves  from  the  government  of  the  Council,  and  made  themselves 
a  free  people,  "  whereby  they  did  rend  in  pieces  the  first  foun 
dation  of  the  building."  On  account  of  these  troubles,  and  upon 
these  considerations,  they  resolved  to  surrender  their  own  patent 
to  the  King. 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  151 

The  political  purpose  of  the  founders  of  Massachusetts,  and 
its  friends  in  England,  when  clearly  understood,  will  be  seen  to 
shed  a  new  light  upon  many  obscure  points  of  our  own  and  also 
of  English  history. 

It  is  curious  to  observe,  among  the  men  who  intended  to  come 
to  New  England,  Pym,  Hampden,  Sir  Arthur  Hazierig,  and 
Oliver  Cromwell.  It  is  instructive  to  notice,  that  it  was  the 
Earl  of  Warwick  who  managed  to  obtain  the  patent  for  the 
Massachusetts  Company,  as  Gorges  relates;  that  it  was  the 
same  earl  who,  on  his  own  responsibility,  conveyed  Connecticut 
to  Lord  Say  and  Sele,  Lord  Rich,  Charles  Fiennes,  John  Pym, 
John  Hampden,  Herbert  Pelham,  and  others ;  and  then  to  re 
mark  that,  in  the  revolution  which  soon  took  place  in  England, 
the  Earl  of  Warwick,  Lord  Say  and  Sele,  and  Lord  Mandeville, 
the  son-in-law  of  Warwick,  are  designated  by  Clarendon  as  chief 
managers  among  the  Peers ;  while  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
Pym,  Hampden,  Sir  Harry  Vane,  and  Nathaniel  Fiennes,  brother 
of  Charles,  were  principal  leaders.  From  these,  and  many  other 
coincidences,  it  looks  as  if  the  revolution  at  home  was  only  a 
carrying  out  and  extending  of  the  political  experiment  which  it 
had  first  been  their  intention  to  try  in  New  England.  And  the 
impression  is  strengthened,  when  we  learn  that  members  of  the 
original  Massachusetts  Company  took  a  prominent  part  in  all 
the  public  movements  of  the  revolutionary  party,  —  in  Parlia 
ment,  in  the  Army,  in  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster, 
and  among  the  Judges  appointed  for  the  trial  of  the  King.  It  is 
not  strange  that  the  lesser  purpose,  and  the  more  limited  inten 
tion,  should  have  been  forgotten  or  obscured,  amid  the  exciting 
events  of  the  grander  and  more  comprehensive  undertaking.1 

A  more  particular  account  of  the  grants  made  or  proposed  by 
the  Council,  which  would  have  been  tedious  in  a  lecture  before 
a  general  audience,  is  given  in  a  supplement. 

1  Dr.  Palfrey  (Hist,  of  N.  E.,  vol.  i.  p.  308)  refers  to  the  probable  purpose  of  a 
renovated  England  in  America  entertained  by  the  Puritan  leaders,  in  view  of  the 
clouds  that  were  gathering  over  the  political  prospects  at  home ;  and  quotes  a  remark 
of  Burke,  to  whom  the  same  reflection  had  occurred.  See  also  Hist,  of  N.  E., 
Tol.  i.  p.  390,  n. 


152  HISTORY  OF  THE  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 


SUPPLEMENT. 


EVERY  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  grants  from  the  Council  for  New  Eng 
land  must  be  aware  that  their  history  would  properly  fill  the  pages  of  a  large 
volume.  All  that  a  single  lecture  can  accomplish,  even  with  the  aid  of  a 
supplement,  is  to  take  the  place  of  an  introductory  chapter,  giving  some  account 
of  the  subject-matter,  and  an  abstract  of  the  most  important  i'acts  and  con 
clusions.  It  is  believed  that  the  list  of  grants  here  presented  is  more  full  and 
more  correct  than  any  before  attempted ;  but  in  a  case  where  our  most  careful 
historians  have  been  led  into  remarkable  errors,  it  would  be  unreasonable  to 
demand  absolute  accuracy  or  completeness.  The  patience  required  for  the 
selection  and  verification  of  the  particulars  now  brought  together,  the  reader 
will  hardly  be  able  to  appreciate.  * 

SUMMARY  OF  GRANTS  FROM  THE  GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND. 

No.  1.  —  The  first  grant  from  the  Council,  of  which  there  is  any  record, 
was  taken  out  in  the  name  of  John  Peirce,  citizen  and  clothworker  of  London, 
and  his  associates,  June  1,  1621,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth. 
It  allowed  one  hundred  acres  to  each  planter  within  seven  years,  free  liberty 
to  fish  on  the  coast  of  New  England,  and  fifteen  hundred  acres  for  public  uses. 
After  seven  years,  a  rent  of  two  shillings  for  every  one  hundred  acres  to  be  paid 
annually.  The  lands  having  been  properly  surveyed  and  set  out  by  metes  and 
bounds  at  the  charge  of  the  grantees,  upon  reasonable  request  within  seven 
years  they  are  to  be  confirmed  by  deed,  and  letters  of  incorporation  granted, 
with  liberty  to  make  laws  and  constitutions  of  government.  In  the  mean  time, 
the  undertakers  and  planters  are  authorized  to  establish  such  laws  and  ordi 
nances,  and  appoint  such  officers,  as  they  shall  by  most  voices  agree  upon. 
This  patent  was  first  printed  from  the  original  manuscript,  with  an  introduction 
and  notes,  by  Charles  Deane,  Esq.,  in  1854.  The  land  was  to  be  taken  any 
where  not  within  ten  miles  of  land  already  inhabited,  or  located  by  authority 
of  the  Council,  unless  it  be  on  the  opposite  side  of  some  river. 

No.  2.  — 1622,  March  9.  Captain  John  Mason's  "  Mariana."  The  head 
land  "  known  by  the  name  of  Tragabigsenda,  or  Cape  Anne,  with  the  north, 
south,  and  east  shores  thereof,"  from  Naumkeag  River,  to  a  river  north-west 
ward  from  the  Cape  (the  Merrimack) ,  then  up  that  river  to  its  head,  thence 
across  to  the  head  of  the  other  river  \  with  all  the  islands  within  three  miles  of 
the  shore.  Hubbard,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  pp.  614-16. 

No.  3.  — 1622,  April  20.  To  John  Peirce.  This  was  an  attempt  of  Peirce 
to  surrender  the  indenture  of  June  1,  1621,  and  take  a  deed  of  the  lands  to 
himself,  his  heirs,  associates,  and  assigns.  When  it  was  ascertained  that  his 
associates  were  not  privy  to  this  movement,  he  was  compelled  to  agree  to 


GREAT   COUNCIL   FOB  NEW   ENGLAND.  153 

submit  the  matter  to  the  authority  and  pleasure  of  the  Council.  See  Council 
Records,  in  Proceedings  of  American  Antiquarian  Society  of  April,  1867. 

No.  4.  —  1622,  May  31.  In  the  Records  of  the  Council  of  this  date,  it  is 
stated,  that  *'  order  is  given  for  patents  to  be  drawn  for  the  Earl  of  Warwick, 
and  his  associates,  the  Lord  Gorges,  Sir  Robert  Mansell,  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorges."  Dr.  Palfrey  regards  this  order  as  referring  to  a  division  of  the 
country,  from  the  Bay  of  Fundy  to  Narraganset  Bay,  among  twenty  as 
sociates,  in  which  the  region  about  Cape  Ann  fell  to  Lord  Sheffield,  who  sold 
a  patent  for  it  to  the  New-Plymouth  people.  Captain  John  Smith,  in  his 
**  Generall  Historic,"  published  in  1624,  says  that  New  England  was  "  engrossed 
by  twenty  patentees  who  divided  my  map  into  twenty  parts,  and  cast  lots  for 
their  shares."  Mr.  Thornton,  in  his  interesting  work  on  Cape  Ann,  has  a 
map  from  Purchas  representing  this  division,  and  a  fac-simile  of  the  patent 
from  Lord  Sheffield  above  mentioned.  There  may  have  been  such  a  division 
suggested  when  Captain  Smith  wrote,  and  Purchas,  writing  at  the  same  date,  may 
have  prepared  the  map  to  correspond  with  that  expectation.  The  above  order 
from  the  Records  of  the  Council  seems,  however,  to  be  limited  in  its  applica 
tion  to  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  three  associates ;  and  there  is  no  account  of 
such  a  division  as  the  map  exhibits  in  the  Records,  as  we  have  them,  or  in  the 
"Relation  of  the  President  and  Council,"  or  in  the  "Briefe  Narration"  of 
Gorges,  or  in  the  act  of  the  Resignation  of  the  Charter,  where  it  would 
naturally  appear.  The  division  referred  to  by  Gorges  in  his  "  Briefe  Narration," 
and  which  is  described  in  the  proceedings  for  the  surrender  of  the  charter,  is  a 
very  different  one,  and  quite  inconsistent  with  that  exhibited  by  the  map.  It  is 
not  improbable  that  the  distribution  mentioned  by  Smith,  may  be  alluded 
to  in  the  agreement  for  the  division,  Feb.  3,  1634-5,  thus:  "Forasmuch 
as  ...  in  the  8th  (?  18th)  year  of  the  reign  of  King  James,  of  blessed 
memory,  in  whose  presence  lots  were  drawn  for  settling  of  divers  and  sundry 
divisions  of  land,  on  the  sea-coast  of  the  said  country,  upon  most  of  us,  which 
hitherto  have  never  been  confirmed  in  the  said  lands  so  allotted,  and  to  the  intent 
that  every  one  of  us  according  to  equity,  and  in  some  reasonable  manner 
answerable  to  his  adventures  or  other  interest,  may  enjoy  a  proportion  of  the 
said  country  to  be  immediately  holden  of  his  Majesty,  we  therefore,"  &c. 
The  deed  from  Lord  Sheffield,  dated  Jan.  1,  1623-4,  is  in  direct  conflict  with  the 
grant  from  the  Council  to  Mason,  March  9,  1622.  (See  above,  No.  2.)  Lord 
Sheffield's  conveyance  of  Cape  Ann,  like  that  of  Connecticut  by  the  Earl  of 
Warwick,  was  probably  based  upon  a  proposed  division  that  was  never 
legally  completed.  See  note  at  the  end  of  this  Supplement. 

No.  5.  — 1622,  Aug.  10.  By  indenture  to  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  and 
Captain  John  Mason,  "All  that  part  of  the  mainland  in  New  England  lying 
upon  the  sea-coast,  betwixt  the  rivers  of  Merrimack  and  Sagadahoc,  and  to  the 
furthest  heads  of  the  said  rivers,  and  so  forwards  up  into  the  land  westward, 
until  threescore  miles  be  finished  from  the  first  entrance  of  the  aforesaid  rivers, 
and  half  way  over;  that  is  to  say,  to  the  midst  of  the  said  two  rivers,"  "to 
gether  with  all  the  islands  and  islets  within  five  leagues'  distance  of  the 
premises,"  which,  it  is  stated,  the  grantees  with  the  consent  of  the  President 
and  Council  intend  to  name  "  The  Province  of  Maine." 


154  HISTORY  OF  THE  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 

The  error  of  Dr.  Belknap  in  supposing  this  to  be  the  Laconia  grant,  has 
been  repeated  by  historians  to  the  present  time.  Mr.  Deane,  who  saw  the 
true  Laconia  deed  in  the  Record  Office  in  London,  two  years  ago,  gives  the 
correct  statement  in  the  Report  of  the  Council  of  the  American  Antiquarian 
Society,  Oct.  21,  1868.  The  grant  of  Aug.  10,  1622,  is  given  in  full  in  the 
Provincial  Papers  of  New  Hampshire,  edited  by  Dr.  Bouton  (Concord,  1867), 
who  also  makes  the  correction.  Hutchinson,  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  282,  ed.  of  1795,  says 
this  grant  "  did  not  appear  to  have  been  signed,  sealed,  or  witnessed  by  any 
order  of  the  Council."  See  Provincial  Papers  of  New  Hampshire,  p.  28,  note. 
For  an  interesting  opinion  of  Sir  William  Jones,  the  King's  Attorney-General,  in 
1679,  on  the  validity  of  the  several  grants  to  Mason,  on  the  absence  of  any 
right  in  the  Council  for  New  England  to  confer  powers  of  government,  and  on 
the  requirement  of  their  charter  that  their  grants  should  appear  to  be  the  acts 
of  a  majority  of  the  Council  present  at  a  lawful  meeting,  see  Hubbard's 
Hist,  of  1ST.  E.,  pp.  616-621. 

No.  6.— 1622,  Nov.  16.  The  Council  Records  speak  of  Mr.  Thompson's 
patent  as  "  this  day  signed."  In  the  Appendix  to  the  memorial  volume  of  the 
Maine  Historical  Society,  is  a  copy  of  an  ancient,  but  imperfect  list  of  New- 
England  patents,  from  the  Record  Office,  London,  in  which  the  first  named  is 
"  a  patent  to  David  Thompson,  M.  Jobe,  M.  Sherwood,  of  Plimouth,  for  a  pt. 
of  Piscattowa  River."  Whatever  Thompson's  grant  may  have  been,  it  came 
to  nothing.  He  was  a  Scotchman,  apparently  in  the  service  of  the  Gorges' 
family,  and  lived  at  one  time  on  the  Piscataqua  River ;  and  at  another,  on 
"  Thompson's  Island,"  in  Boston  Harbor. 

No.  7.  — 1622.  Thomas  Weston  was  supposed  to  have  a  patent  of  land  at 
Wessagusset  (Wreymouth,  Mass.).  Bradford,  p.  122.  "  Weston's  patent  is  not 
extant,  and  little  is  known  respecting  it."  Deane,  in  Bradford,  p.  124,  note. 

No.  8.  — 1622,  Dec.  30.  To  Robert  Gorges,  son  of  Sir  Ferdinando,  "All 
that  part  of  the  mainland  commonly  called  Messachusiac,  on  the  north-east 
side  of  the  Bay  known  by  the  name  of  Massachuset,  together  with  all  the  shores 
along  the  sea  for  ten  English  miles  in  a  strait  line  towards  the  north-east,  and 
thirty  miles  into  the  mainland  through  all  the  breadth  aforesaid,"  including  the 
islands,  within  three  miles'  of  any  part  of  said  land,  not  before  granted.  The 
grant  is  given  at  length  in  the  "  Briefe  Narration,"  chap,  xxiii.  Its  tenure  is  by 
"  the  sword,"  per  Gladium  Comitatus.  When  Robert  Gorges  came  over,  he 
located  himself  at  Wessagusset,  which  was  not  within  his  grant.  Among  the 
manuscript  records  of  Massachusetts  is  a  memorandum  to  the  effect,  that,  Robert 
Gorges  having  died  without  issue,  the  land  descended  to  his  eldest  brother,  John, 
who  conveyed  it  to  Sir  William  Brereton,  Jan.  10,  1628.  Brereton  died, 
leaving  a  son  and  a  daughter.  The  son  died,  and  the  daughter  married  Edmund 
Lcntliall ;  and  their  only  daughter  and  heir  married  Mr.  Levett,  of  the  Inner 
Temple,  who  claimed  the  land  in  right  of  his  wife.  See  note  to  the  "Briefe 
Narration  "  of  Gorges,  in  Coll.  of  Me.  Hist.  Soc.,  vol.  ii.  p.  46. 

No.  9.  — 1623.  To  Ferdinando  Gorges,  grandson  of  Sir  Ferdinando,  and 
his  associates,  among  whom  were  "Walter  Norton,  Lieutenant- Colonel 
Thomas  Coppyn,  Esq.,  Samuel  Maverick,  Esq.,  Thomas  Graves,  Gent,  (an 
engineer),  Raphe  Glover,  merchant,  William  Jeffryes,  Gent.,  John  Busley, 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  155 

Gent.,  JoelWoolsey,  Gent.,  all  of  New  England."  The  date  of  1623  is 
derived  from  the  "  Briefe  Narration,"  chap,  xxv.,  where  Gorges  says  his  grand 
son,  and  some  of  his  associates,  hastened  to  take  possession  at  the  time,  carry 
ing  with  them  their  families ;  but  according  to  the  Council  Records,  the  date 
of  sealing  the  patent  was  Dec.  2,  1631.  It  was  renewed  March  2,  1632,  with 
some  change  in  the  associates,  and  the  former  patent  cancelled.  The  grant  was 
first,  of  one  hundred  acres  to  each  person  transported  within  seven  years,  if  he 
remained  three  years ;  second,  of  twelve  thousand  more,  to  the  associates,  on 
the  east  side  of  the  river  Agamenticus,  on  the  coast  three  miles,  and  into  the 
land  so  far  as  to  contain  twelve  thousand  acres,  and  one  hundred  acres  more  for 
each  person  ;  third,  to  F.  Gorges  himself,  besides  the  above,twelve  thousand  acres 
on  the  opposite  or  western  side  of  the  river  along  the  coast  westerly  to  the  land 
appropriated  to  the  plantation  at  Pascataquack  (Portsmouth),  and  so  along  the 
river  Agamenticus,  and  the  bounds  of  Pascataquack,  into  the  mainland  so  far  as 
to  contain  twelve  thousand  acres ;  with  all  the  islands  within  three  leagues  into 
the  ocean.  In  consideration  that  they  have  undertaken  to  build  a  town.  Two 
shillings  to  be  paid  yearly  for  every  one  hundred  acres  of  arable  land  after  seven 
years.  This  description  is  from  the  Records  of  the  Council,  in  Proceedings  of 
the  American  Society  of  April,  1867.  See  also  respecting  this  grant,  Coll.  of 
Me.  Hist.  Soc.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  49,  50,  note.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Council,  March  22, 
1637  (after  the  surrender  of  their  charter),  it  is  stated  that  this  grant  was 
renewed  to  Edward  Godfrey  and  others,  and  "  this  day  the  seal  of  the  com 
pany  was  set  thereunto." 

No.  10.  — 1628.  To  the  Plymouth  people,  of  lands  on  the  Kennebec. 
Renewed  and  enlarged  the  next  year.  Bradford,  p.  232. 

No.  11.  —The  Massachusetts  patent  of  March  19,  1628,  made  into  a  Royal 
charter,  March  4,  1629.  Dr.  Palfrey  expresses  an  opinion,  that  the  patentees 
among  whom  the  coast  of  New  England  had  been  partitioned  six  years  before 
surrendered  their  claims,  founded  on  the  following  record  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Company  :  "  Sept.  29,  1629.  —  It  is  thought  fit,  and  ordered,  that  the 
secretary  shall  write  out  a  copy  of  the  former  grant  to  the  Earl  of  Warwick  and 
others,  which  was  by  them  resigned  to  this  company,  to  be  presented  to  his 
lordship." 

The  patent  of  the  Massachusetts  Company  from  the  New-England  Council 
is  not  extant ;  and  there  is  some  mystery  attending  the  manner  of  its  procure 
ment,  as  well  as  about  its  original  extent.  Sir  F.  Gorges  says,  that,  on  the 
request  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  he  consented  to  a  grant  that  should  not  be 
prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  his  son  Robert.  In  the  act  of  resignation  of  their 
charter  by  the  Council,  they  say,  that  the  Massachusetts  Company,  "present 
ing  the  names  of  honest  and  religious  men,  easily  obtained  their  first  desires ; 
but  those  being  once  gotten,  they  used  other  means  to  advance  themselves  a 
step  beyond  their  first  proportions  to  a  second  grant,  surreptitiously  gotten, 
of  other  lands  also,  justly  passed  unto  Captain  Robert  Gorges  long  before." 
Robert  Mason,  petitioning  the  King,  in  1676,  for  possession  of  the  lands  granted 
to  his  grandfather,  declares  that  the  Massachusetts  Company  "did  surrep 
titiously,  and  unknown  to  the  said  Council,  get  the  seal  of  the  said  Council 
affixed  to  a  grant  of  certain  lands ; "  and  did,  by  their  subtile  practices,  get  a 


156  HISTORY  OF  THE  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 

confirmation  under  the  great  seal  of  England.  In  their  answer  to  this  petition, 
the  Massachusetts  authorities  deny  the  charge,  no  doubt  with  sincerity  ;  but  all 
circumstances  leave  an  impression  on  the  mind  that,  by  the  influence,  perhaps 
by  the  management,  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  advantages  were  gained,  which 
many,  if  not  most,  of  the  Council  would  have  objected  to.  By  the  favor  of 
Warwick,  the  Plymouth  people  obtained  their  lands  on  the  Kennebec ;  and  the 
patent  of  Connecticut  was  made  in  his  own  name,  by  what  authority  does  not 
sufficiently  appear.  These  facts  may  explain  the  dissatisfaction  which  arose  be 
tween  the  Council  and  Warwick,  their  president,  and  the  efforts  of  the  Council 
to  get  the  seal  out  of  his  possession.  He  seems  not  to  have  cared  for  personal 
proprietorship,  but  to  have  desired  to  give  his  Puritan  friends  the  advantage 
of  his  official  position  and  influence. 

No.  12. — 1629,  Nov.  7.  By  indenture,  to  Captain  John  Mason,  part  of  the 
same  territory  which  was  conveyed  by  a  similar  deed  to  Gorges  and  Mason,  jointly, 
Aug.  10,  1622.  The  difference  being,  that  instead  of  extending  from  the  middle 
of  the  Merrimack  River  to  the  middle  of  the  Sagadahoc,  on  the  coast,  and  back 
into  the  interior  sixty  miles  between  those  limits,  this  grant  extends  no  farther 
than  the  middle  of  the  Piscataqua  River,  but  the  same  distance  into  the  interior 
between  the  Merrimack  and  the  Piscataqua,  including  also  islands  within  five 
leagues  of  the  shore;  "  which  the  said  Captain  John  Mason,  with  the  consent 
of  the  President  and  Council,  intends  to  name  Neio  Hampshire"  In  the  deed 
to  Gorges  and  Mason,  it  was  proposed  to  call  the  whole  territory  the  Province 
of  Maine.  The  form  and  general  phraseology  of  the  two  deeds  are  alike. 
If  the  first  instrument  was  valid,  this  one,  of  necessity,  could  be  of  no  effect. 
See  above,  No.  5 ;  Provincial  Papers  of  New  Hampshire,  pp.  21  and  28,  note; 
Hazard,  vol.  i.  p.  289. 

No.  13.  — 1629,  Nov.  17.  This  is  the  true  Laconia  grant,  which,  by  a  mistake, 
originating  doubtless  in  a  misprint,  has  sometimes  had  the  date  -Nov.  27, 
instead  of  Nov.  17,  assigned  to  it.  There  is  a  copy  of  it  in  the  office  of 
the  Secretary  of  State  of  Massachusetts.  It  embraces,  in  substance,  the  lands 
bordering  upon  the  great  lake  (Champlain),  or  lakes  and  rivers  commonly 
known  by  the  name  of  the  river  and  lake,  or  rivers  and  lakes,  of  the  Iroquois ; 
together  with  those  lakes  and  rivers,  and  the  land  within  ten  miles  of  any  part 
of  them  on  the  south  or  east,  and  from  the  west  end  or  sides  so  far  to  the  west 
as  shall  extend  half-way  into  the  next  great  lake  to  the  westward;  thence 
northward  into  the  north  side  of  the  main  river  running  from  the  great  western 
lakes  into  the  river  of  Canada,  including  all  islands  within  the  precincts. 

The  nullity  of  this  grant  is  shown  by  the  fact,  that  so  many  careful  historians 
have  confounded  it  with  that  of  Aug.  10,  1622,  another  imperfect  and  ineffectual 
instrument.  See  N.  II.  Provincial  Papers,  vol.  i.  pp.  28  and  38.  Hubbard, 
Hist,  of  N.  E.,  chap,  xxxi.,  says,  that  after  three  years  of  fruitless  endeavors 
for  the  more  full  discovery  of  "an  imaginary  Province  called  Laconia,"  the 
agents  of  Gorges  returned  to  England  with  a  "  non  est  invents  Provincial1 

No.  14.  — 1629,  o.s.,  Jan.  13.  The  last  Plymouth  patent,  to  William  Brad 
ford  and  his  associates,  in  consideration  that  they  have  lived  nine  years  in  New 
England,  and  planted  a  town  at  their  own  cost,  and  are  able  to  relieve  new 
planters  :  All  that  part  of  New  England  between  the  middle  of  Cohasset  River 


GREAT   COUNCIL   FOR   NEW   ENGLAND.  157 

and  the  middle  of  Narraganset  River,  and  up  from  the  mouths  of  those  rivers 
in  a  strait  line  into  the  mainland  as  far  as  the  utmost  limits  of  the  country- 
called  "  Pokenacutt,  alias  Sowamsett;'1  and  bounded  on  the  east  by  the  ocean, 
without  including  islands  on  the  coast.  And  as  the  grantees  have  no  con 
venient  place  for  trading  or  fishing  within  their  own  precincts,  there  is  also 
conveyed  to  them  all  that  tract  of  land,  between,  or  extending  from,  the  utmost 
limits  of  Cobbisconte,  which  adjoins  the  river  Kennebec,  towards  the  western 
ocean,  and  a  place  called  the  Falls  at  Nequamkike ;  and  the  space  of  fifteen 
miles  on  each  side  of  the  river  Kennebec,  and  all  the  said  river  Kennebec 
that  lies  within  the  said  limits  and  bounds,  eastward,  westward,  northward, 
or  southward,  last  above  mentioned.  The  patent  gave  a  right  of  passage  to 
and  from  the  ocean,  and  the  right  of  fishing  on  the  neighboring  shores,  not 
inhabited  or  otherwise  disposed  of,  and  also  privileges  of  administration.  It 
appears  to  have  no  other  signature  than  that  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick. 

The  Plymouth  people  tried  in  vain  to  procure  a  charter  from  the  Crown,  with 
powers  of  government.  They  strengthened  their  rights  in  Maine  by  deeds  from 
the  Indians,  and  endeavored  to  establish  settlements;  but  tired  of  the  vexation 
which  that  property  gave  them,  they  sold  their  entire  interest,  in  1661,  to  four 
persons,  for  four  hundred  pounds.  In  1753,  the  then  owners  became  a  cor 
poration,  by  the  name  of  "  the  Proprietors  of  the  Kennebec  Purchase  :  "  and, 
after  much  controversy  and  litigation,  the  obscure  boundaries  were  ultimately 
adjusted.  See  Gardiner's  "  Hist,  of  the  Kennebec  Purchase,"  in  Coll.  of  Maine 
Hist.  Society,  vol.  ii.  The  patent  is  in  Hazard,  vol.  i.  pp.  298-303. 

No.  15.  — 1630,  Feb.  12.  At  this  date,  two  deeds  were  issued  of  the  land 
between  Cape  Elizabeth  and  Cape  Porpoise  in  Maine,  each  of  four  miles  along  the 
coast,  and  eight  miles  into  the  mainland  ;  one  on  the  north  side  of  the  Saco  River 
to  Thomas  Lewis  and  Richard  Bonython,  the  other  on  the  south  side  of  the  Saco 
River  to  John  Oldham  and  Richard  Vines.  From  these  grants  have  sprung  the 
two  towns  of  Saco  and  Biddeford,  retaining  nearly  the  same  limits.  Hist,  of 
Saco  and  Biddeford,  by  George  Folsom. 

No.  16.  — 1630,  March  13.  The  Muscongus  grant,  afterwards  known  as  the 
Waldo  patent.  The  abstract  of  this  grant,  in  Hazard,  Coll.  vol.  i.  pp.  304,  305, 
taken  from  the  Maine  Records,  is  unintelligible.  Williamson,  Hist,  of  Me. 
vol.  i.  p.  240,  describes  it  as  extending  from  the  seaboard,  between  the  rivers 
Penobscot  and  Muscongus,  to  an  unsurveyed  line  running  east  and  west  so  far 
north  as  would,  without  interfering  with  any  other  patent,  embrace  a  territory 
equal  to  thirty  miles  square ;  and  adds,  in  a  note,  that  the  north  line,  as  since 
settled,  is  in  the  south  line  of  Hampden,  Newbury,  and  Dixmont.  The  grant 
was  to  John  Beauchamp  and  Thomas  Leverett,  of  England.  Leverett  is  said 
to  have  succeeded  to  the  property  on  the  death  of  Beauchamp.  John  Leverett, 
President  of  Harvard  College,  as  sole  heir  of  his  grandfather,  became  the  owner 
in  1715.  By  the  admission  of  partners,  a  company  was  formed,  consisting  of 
thirty  proprietors,  who  first  employed  Brigadier-General  Samuel  Waldo  as 
agent,  and  ultimately  assigned  to  him  the  largest  interest  in  the  patent.  Coll. 
of  Me.  Hist.  Society,  vol.  vi.  art.  xv. 

No.  17.  —  1630.  The  Lygonia,  or  Plough  patent,  considered  to  extend  from 
Kennebunk  River  to  Harpswell  in  Casco  Bay,  or,  as  usually  stated,  from  Cape 


158  HISTORY  OF  THE  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 

Porpoise  to  Cape  Elizabeth,  and  forty  miles  inland.  Hubbard,  Ind.  Wars, 
part  ii.  p.  9,  says  the  patent  was  granted  in  the  year  1630,  and  signed  by  the 
Earl  of  Warwick  and  Sir  Fcrdinando  Gorges.  Willis,  Hist,  of  Portland,  p.  29, 
says  he  has  never  "been  able  to  discover  this  patent,  nor  ascertain  its  date, 
nor  who  are  the  patentees."  Different  names  are  given  in  different  accounts. 
An  unsuccessful  attempt  at  settlement  was  made  in  1031.  In  1643  the  patent 
was  transferred  to  Alexander  Rigby,  a  rich  English  lawyer,  who  appointed 
George  Cleaves  as  his  deputy.  The  contest  of  conflicting  jurisdictions  between 
the  representative  of  Rigby  and  the  representatives  of  Gorges  was  only  ended 
when  Massachusetts  took  possession  of  the  whole  territory  in  1672.  Sullivan, 
Hist,  of  Me.,  pp.  309-319  ;  ib.,  "  Land  Titles,"  p.  44 ;  Williamson,  Hist,  of  Me. 
vol.  i.  p.  238;  Folsom,  Hist,  of  Saco  and  Biddeford,  pp.  26-28. 

No.  is.  —  16)M ,  March  12.  To  Edward  Hilton,  "  all  that  part  of  the  river 
Piscataqua  called  Hilton's  Point,  with  the  S.  side  of  the  said  river  up  to  the  falls 
of  Squamscot  (or  Swamscot),  and  three  miles  into  the  mainland  for  breadth." 
Following  Dr.  Belknap  and  Dr.  Palfrey,  I  stated  in  the  lecture  that  this  grant 
covered  the  towns  of  Dover,  Durham,  and  Stratham.  But  in  the  recently  pub 
lished  Provincial  Papers  of  New  Hampshire,  p.  29,  Dr.  Bouton,  the  editor, 
says,  **  No  document  relating  to  New  Hampshire  has  been  so  grossly  misrep 
resented  as  this.  ...  It  covered  only  Hilton's  Point ;  .  .  .  and  the  whole  did  not 
exceed  a  township  five  miles  square."  Its  extent  and  its  ownership,  in  1656, 
as  shown  in  a  record  of  partition,  by  authority  of  Massachusetts,  may  be  seen 
in  ibid.,  pp.  221-223. 

No.  19.  — 1631,  Nov.  4,  by  the  Council  Records  (Willis,  and  others,  say 
Nov.  1).  To  Thomas  Cammock,  fifteen  hundred  acres,  lying  upon  the 
mainland  along  the  sea-coast,  on  the  east  side  of  Black  Point  River.  This  is 
now  a  part  of  Scarborough,  and  included  Stratton's  islands.  Possession  given 
in  1633 ;  patent  confirmed  by  Gorges  in  1640.  The  tract  is  now  held  under 
this  title.  Willis,  Hist,  of  Portland,  p.  31. 

No.  20.  — 1631,  Nov.  4.  To  Richard  Bradshaw,  "fifteen  hundred  acres, 
to  be  allotted  above  the  head  of  Pashippscot  (Pejepscot),  on  the  north  side 
thereof,  not  formerly  granted  to  any  other."  Council  Records.  This,  and  the 
grant  to  Cammock,  were  in  consideration  that  the  grantees  had  been  living  on 
the  premises  for  some  years. 

The  Council  Records  of  Dec.  2,  1631,  say,  that  Lord  Gorges  and  Sir  Ferdi- 
nando  Gorges  gave  order  for  two  patents,  one  for  Walter  Bagnall  for  a  small 
island,  called  Richmond  Island,  and  fifteen  hundred  acres  on  the  mainland,  to 
be  selected  by  Walter  Neale  and  Richard  Vines  ;  another  for  John  Stratton,  of 
two  thousand  acres,  on  the  south  side  of  Cape  Porpoise,  and  "on  the  other 
side  northwards  into  the  south  side  of  the  harbor's  mouth  of  Cape  Porpoise." 
Sainsbury's  Calendar,  p.  137,  has  it  "John  Stratton  of  Shotley,  co.  Suffolk, 
and  his  associates." 

Bagnall  was  at  Richmond  Island  in  1628,  where  he  was  killed  by  the  Indians, 
Oct.  3, 1631  (previous  to  the  date  above  stated).  Willis,  Hist,  of  Portland,  p.  25. 

No.  21.  — 1631,  Nov.  4.  To  Sir  Fcrdinando  Gorges  and  Captain  John 
Mason,  and  their  associates,  a  portion  of  land  on  the  Piscataqua  River,  "  along 
the  seashore  westward  five  miles,  and  by  an  imaginary  line  into  the  mainland, 


GREAT  COUNCIL  FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  159 

north  to  the  bounds  of  a  plantation  belonging  to  Edward  Hilton  ;  and  the  islands 
within  the  same  river  eastward,  together  with  three  miles  along  the  shore  to  the 
eastward  of  said  river,  and  opposite  to  the  habitation  and  plantation  where 
Captain  Neale  lives,  and  up  into  the  mainland  northerly,  by  all  the  breadth 
aforesaid,  thirty  miles  ;  with  the  lakes  at  the  head  of  said  river."  In  considera 
tion  of  service  formerly  done,  and  the  settlement  there  by  Captain  Neale,  the 
erection  of  salt-pans,  &c. 

They  were  to  pay  to  the  Council  forty  shillings  sterling,  payable  at  the 
Assurance  House,  Royal  Exchange,  London,  if  demanded.  First  payment  at 
the  Feast  of  St.  Michael,  1632,  "  and  so  for  all  service  from  year  to  year." 
Abstract  in  the  Council  Records.  Hubbard,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  chap,  xxxi.,  says, 
that  in  his  time,  a  copy  of  this  indenture  was  extant  at  Portsmouth.  He  makes 
the  date  Nov.  3,  1631,  and  the  instrument  to  be  without  signature  or  seal;  but 
he  says,  "  it  seems  to  be  of  as  much  force  as  other  instruments  of  like  nature 
produced  on  such  like  accounts  at  the  present  time."  The  Council  Records 
state  that  the  patent  was  sealed  Nov.  4.  Hubbard  calls  the  sum  to  be  paid 
forty-eight  pounds  per  annum,  instead  of  the  forty  shillings  mentioned  in  the 
Records.  The  names  of  the  associates  are  in  Hubbard. 

No.  22. — 1631,  Dec.  1.  To  Robert  Trelawny  and  Moses  Goodyear,  the 
tract  lying  between  Cammock's  patent  "  and  the  bay  and  river  of  Casco,  and 
extending  northwards  into  the  mainland,  so  far  as  the  limits  and  bounds  of  the 
lands  granted  to  the  said  Thomas  Cammock,  do  and  ought  to  extend  towards 
the  north."  It  was  claimed  that  this  grant  included  Cape  Elizabeth,  and  nearly 
all  the  ancient  town  of  Falmouth,  and  part  of  Gorham  and  Richmond  island. 
A  contest  was  maintained,  in  reference  to  boundaries,  for  many  years,  extending 
beyond  the  lives  of  the  first  settlers.  Willis,  Hist,  of  Portland,  pp.  32,  33 ; 
Council  Records. 

No.  23.-- 1632,  Feb.  29.  To  Robert  Aldworth  and  Giles  Elbridge  :  first, 
one  hundred  acres  for  every  person  transported  by  them  within  seven  years, 
adjacent  to  twelve  thousand  acres,  afterwards  mentioned,  and  not  lately  granted, 
or  settled  and  inhabited,  by  any  English.  Second,  twelve  thousand  acres  more 
to  be  laid  out  near  the  river  Pemaquid,  along  the  sea-coast  as  the  coast  lieth, 
and  up  the  river  as  far  as  may  contain  the  said  twelve  thousand  acres  and 
the  hundred  acres  for  each  person  transported,  together  with  all  the  islands 
opposite  their  coast  within  three  leagues  into  the  ocean.  In  consideration  that 
they  have  undertaken  to  build  a  town,  &c.  Powers  of  government,  or  ad 
ministration,  are  also  expressed  in  the  deed,  which  was  signed  by  the  Earl  of 
Warwick  and  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges.  Pemaquid,  like  other  territories  in 
Maine,  has  been  a  subject  of  much  controversy,  and  has  experienced  many 
vicissitudes.  It  is  said  that  one  of  its  sons  is  preparing  a  history  of  its  fortunes. 
"Ancient  Pemaquid"  has  already  been  the  subject  of  an  Historical  Review,  by 
Mr.  Thornton.  A  notarial  copy  on  parchment  of  the  original  deed,  and  two 
volumes  of  the  records  of  its  proprietors,  from  1743  to  1774,  are  in  the  library 
of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society. 

No.  24. —1632,  June  16.  Under  this  date,  in  Mr.  Sainsbury's  Calendar 
of  Colonial  Papers  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  London,  is  the  following  entry : 
"  Grant  of  the  Council  for  New  England  to  George  Way  and  Thomas  Purchas, 


160  HISTORY  OF  THE  GRANTS  UNDER  THE 

of  certain  lands  in  New  England,  called  the  River  Bishopscotte,  and  all  that 
bounds  and  limits  the  mainland  adjoining  the  river  to  the  extent  of  two  miles'." 
By  Bishopscotte  is  meant  Pcjepscot,  now  Brunswick.  Purchas,  it  is  said, 
took  possession  in  1628,  and  lived  there  many  years.  In  1639,  he  conveyed 
the  title  and  jurisdiction  to  Massachusetts,  reserving  the  interest  and  possession 
of  such  lands  as  he  should  use  and  improve  within  seven  years.  Hazard,  vol.  i. 
p.  457.  The  country  was  depopulated  during  the  Indian  war  of  1675 ;  after 
which,  Richard  Wharton  obtained  the  claims  of  both  Purchas  and  Way,  ex 
pecting  a  confirmation  from  the  King,  but  died  before  his  plans  were  completed. 
See  Willis,  Hist,  of  Portland,  p.  24  ;  Coll.  of  Me.  Hist.  Society,  vol.  iii.  articles 
v.  and  vi. 

The  original  deed  to  Way  and  Purchas  has  long  since  been  lost,  and  no 
record  of  it  remains.  This  grant  was  the  subject  of  a  long  and  bitter  contro 
versy  between  the  Pejepscot  proprietors  and  other  claimants,  not  finally  settled 
till  about  1814.  Willis,  Hist,  of  Portland,  p.  64,  note. 

The  efforts  of  the  Council  to  divide  New  England  into  provinces,  or  lord 
ships,  and  distribute  these  among  themselves,  remain  to  be  noticed.  There 
are  indications  that  such  a  design  was  entertained  at  an  early  period ;  but  the 
charter  was  found  to  be  defective,  and  arrangements  were  soon  made  for  a  new 
one,  from  which  all  the  patentees  who  had  not  paid  their  dues  were  to  be  ex 
cluded.  To  entitle  a  partner  to  the  benefit  of  the  lands  and  the  privileges  of 
a  patentee,  a  payment  of  £110  was  required.  It  was  voted  that  delinquents 
should  forfeit  all  interest  under  the  charter,  and  their  rights  and  privileges  be 
transferred  to  persons  willing  to  take  their  places  and  make  the  payments. 
Not  more  than  half  of  the  original  patentees  accepted  the  conditions  of  mem 
bership,  and  fewer  still  seem  to  have  redeemed  their  pledges. 

At  various  dates  in  the  Records,  — May  31,  1622,  July  24,  1622,  June  21, 
and  26,  1632,  —  agreements  and  orders  are  introduced  having  in  view  the 
assignment  of  territory,  more  or  less  particularly  designated,  to  certain  mem 
bers.  But  all  these  orders  and  agreements,  whatever  may  have  been  the  inten 
tions  of  the  Council  at  the  time,  were  treated  as  of  no  validity  when  they  came 
to  surrender  the  charter  to  the  King.  In  preparation  for  that  event,  they  met 
on  the  3d  of  February,  1634-5,  and  divided  the  coast  of  New  England  into 
eight  parts  ;  viz. :  — 

1st,  From  the  southern  limits  in  the  fortieth  degree  of  latitude  to  Hudson's 
River. 

2d,  From  Hudson's  River  to  a  river  or  creek  ("  near  a  place  called  Redunes 
or  Reddownes  ")  about  sixty  miles  eastward. 

3d,  From  that  river  eastward  about  forty-five  miles,  to  a  river  or  creek  called 
Fresh  River. 

4th,  From  the  Connecticut  River  to  the  Narraganset  River,  accounted  about 
sixty  miles. 

5th,  From  Narraganset  River  around  Cape  Cod  to  Naumkeag  (Salem). 

6th,  From  Naumkeag  to  Piscataqua  Harbor  and  River. 

7th,  From  Piscataqua  Harbor  to  the  Kennebec  River. 

8th,  From  the  Kennebec  River  to  the  St.  Croix. 


GREAT  COUNCIL   FOR  NEW  ENGLAND.  161 

By  comparing  the  Council  Records,  the  "Briefe  Narration"  of  Gorges,  and 
Hubbard's  History  of  New  England,  we  find  that  the  First  portion  was  assigned 
to  the  Earl  of  Arundel  (Gorges  says  Lord  Mulgrave,  who  was  originally  Lord 
Sheffield)  ;  the  Second  to  the  Duke  of  Richmond  (in  place  of  the  Duke  of 
Lenox)  ;  the  Third  to  the  Earl  of  Carlisle ;  the  Fourth  to  Lord  Gorges ;  the 
Fifth  to  the  Marquis  »f  Hamilton ;  the  Sixth  to  Captain  John  Mason ;  the 
Seventh  to  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges ;  the  Eighth  to  Lord  Alexander. 

Each  of  these  divisions  was  to  extend  back  into  the  interior  sixty  miles, 
except  the  last,  which  reached  to  the  "  river  of  Canada." 

Each  division,  except  the  last  two,  was  to  have,  in  addition,  ten  thousand 
acres  on  the  "east  part  of  Sagadahoc."  The  seventh  division  was  to  have 
with  it  the  north  half  of  the  Isles  of  Shoals  and  the  Isles  of  Capawock,  Nauti- 
can,  &c.,  near  Cape  Cod ;  and  the  eighth  division  the  Island  called  Mattawack, 
or  the  Long  Island,  west  of  Cape  Cod.  The  south  half  of  the  Isles  of  Shoals 
was  to  go  with  the  division  of  Captain  Mason. 

There  is  apparently  a  space  omitted  between  "  Fresh  River,"  wherever  that 
was,  and  the  Connecticut. 

These  divisions  are  described  with  particularity  in  the  Records  of  the  Coun 
cil.  It  is  stated  that  the  grants  were  signed  and  delivered  on  the  fourteenth 
day  of  April;  that,  on  the  eighteenth,  leases,  for  three  thousand  years,  of  the 
several  divisions,  were  made  to  the  persons  interested ;  and  that  on  the  twenty- 
second,  deeds  of  feofment  were  made  to  them. 

To  every  one  that  had  previously  a  lawful  grant  of  lands  was  reserved  the 
freehold  with  its  rights,  he  "  laying  down  his  jura  regalia  (if  he  have  any)  and 
paying  some  small  acknowledgment,  for  that  he  is  now  to  hold  his  land  anew 
of  the  proprietor  of  the  division." 

It  is  to  be  inferred  that  this  remnant  of  the  Council  included  all  who  were 
then  desirous,  or  qualified,  to  receive  assignments  of  territory. 

The  account  of  this  division  by  Hubbard,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  chap,  xxxi.,  differs 
from  that  in  the  Records  in  many  important  particulars,  and  is  less  likely  to  be 
correct. 

On  the  26th  of  April,  1635,  the  Council  prepared  a  petition  to  the  King  that 
he  would  cause  patents  to  be  made  for  the  several  divisions,  to  be  held  imme 
diately  from  himself;  and  on  the  5th  of  May  resolved  that  the  deeds  should  be 
acknowledged  before  a  Master  in  Chancery,  and  enrolled  before  the  surrender 
of  the  charter,  and  the  King  be  requested  to  confirm  them  under  the  Great 
Seal ;  also  to  prosecute  a  suit  at  law  for  the  repeal  of  the  Massachusetts  patent. 
They  also  prepared  the  form  of  an  acceptance  for  the  King  to  adopt  on  their 
surrender  of  the  charter,  and  a  declaration  of  the  reasons  on  account  of  which 
the  surrender  was  made.  The  formal  resignation  was  dated  June  7,  1635. 

The  acceptance  of  the  surrender  may  have  been  held  in  abeyance  for  a 
time,  as  meetings  of  the  Council  are  recorded,  Nov.  26,  1635,  March  22,  1637, 
and  Nov.  1,  1638,  at  which  business  was  transacted.  The  Earl  of  Lindsay  de 
sired  to  have  a  proportion  of  land  allotted  to  him  ;  which  was  assented  to,  to  be 
"on  y°  river  where  the  Flemings  are  seated,"  above  the  Duke  of  Richmond. 
Lord  Maltravers  wished  for  "  a  degree  more  in  longitude  and  latitude  joining 
his  limits  (had  he  taken  the  place  of  some  one  of  the  eight  grantees  ?),  which  the 

11 


162  HISTORY   OF  THE  GRANTS   FOR  NEW  ENGLAND. 

Council  were  willing  to  assent  to,  if  he  would  declare  in  what  direction  he  wanted 
it.  The  Earl  of  Sterling's  (Lord  Alexander's)  proportion  was  carried  more 
distinctly  to  the  Kennebec  River ;  and  Lord  Gorges,  and  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges, 
were  each  allowed  sixty  miles  further  up  into  the  mainland. 

Our  supplement  can  afford  no  space  for  comments  or  inferences ;  but  it  is 
apparent  that  no  such  division  as  is  referred  to  by  Captain  John  Smith  in  1624, 
and  laid  down  on  the  map  published  by  Purchas,  was  recognized  by  the  Council 
as  valid,  and  that  no  territorial  rights  were  admitted  as  having  belonged  to  the 
Earl  of  Warwick.  The  charter  of  Massachusetts  was  to  be  annulled,  the  entire 
coast  of  New  England  divided  among  the  eight  Proprietary's  above  named,  and 
all  remaining  rights  and  powers  belonging  to  the  Grand  Patent  surrendered  to 
the  King,  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  to  be  made  his  Lieutenant  or  Governor  over 
the  whole  country  as  a  province  of  the  Crown.  Political  events  at  home  pre 
vented  the  accomplishment  of  this  design.  Captain  John  Mason  and  Sir  Ferdi 
nando  Gorges  alone  contrived  to  secure  permanent  advantages  to  themselves. 
No  other  executed  deed  of  any  of  the  proposed  divisions  has  come  down  to  us  but 
that  to  Mason,  April  22, 1635,  without,  however,  a  confirmation  from  the  King. 
Gorges  received  his  division,  with  the  additional  sixty  miles  into  the  interior,  in 
the  form  of  a  charter  from  the  Crown,  dated  April  3,  1639.  Obscurity  of  descrip 
tion,  the  overlapping  of  boundaries  in  different  deeds,  the  introduction  of  powers 
which  the  Council  could  not  legally  confer  (such  as  those  of  government  and 
administration),  and  imperfect  execution,  seem  to  have  rendered  most  of  their 
early  grants  unsound  in  their  own  estimation ;  and  perhaps  all  of  them  would 
have  proved  to  be  void  or  voidable  if  subjected  to  a  strict  legal  test.  It  will 
simplify  the  subject,  if  we  strike  from  the  list  of  those  which  preceded 
the  final  division  the  first  eight  and  the  thirteenth  as  of  no  subsequent  con 
sequence,  and  rest  the  claims  of  Mason  and  Gorges  upon  the  deeds  to  Mason 
of  Nov.  7,  1629  and  April  22,  1635,  and  the  charter  to  Gorges  of  April  3,  1639, 
as  some  of  their  representatives  appear  to  have  done  (see  Prov.  Papers  of  N.H. 
p.  28,  note).  Massachusetts  ultimately  took  the  place  of  these  great  proprietors, 
and  extended  her  jurisdiction  over  most  of  the  territory  covering  the  minor 
patents,  whose  adjustment  among  the  parties  interested  was  the  work  of  much 
time,  and  a  great  deal  of  law. 

NOTE. 

In  Hubbard's  History  of  N.  E.,  pp.  231-2,  is  what  purports  to  be  an  attested  copy  of  so  much  of  the 
agreement  for  a  division  among  themselves,  by  the  Council,  as  relates  to  the  portion  assigned  to  Captain 
John  Mason.  It  is  signed  by  the  other  seven  Council  members.  It  contains  also  the  paragraphs 
which,  in  the  Records  of  the  Council,  precede  and  follow  the  list  and  descriptions  of  the  several  divisions ; 
and  an  error  in  copying  the  first  paragraph  has  increased  the  confusion  heretofore  attending  this  subject. 
The  agreement,  as  the  Records  show,  was  dated  Feb.  3, 1634  ;  and  the  copyist  of  Hubbard's  document 
introduced  that  date  into  the  first  paragraph,  which  alludes  to  an  attempt  in  the  lifetime  of  King  James, 
and  in  his  presence,  to  effect  a  similar  division,  making  it  appear  as  if  the  attempt  occurred  on  that 
date.  In  the  second  edition  of  Hubbard,  the  editor,  Mr.  Harris,  observing  that  there  must  be  a  mistake, 
altered  the  figures  from  1634  to  1624 ;  a  worse  error,  as  it  has  led  to  the  belief  that  a  division  was  actu 
ally  made  on  the  3d  of  February,  1624.  The  Records  mention  no  such  date. 

It  is  proper  to  state,  that  the  original  Records  of  the  Council  for  New  England  are  not  extant.  The 
copy  printed  by  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  in  1867,  was  obtained  by  me  in  London,  at  the  State 
Paper  Office,  where  the  parts  so  recovered  exist  in  the  form  of  a  transcript,  apparently  made  for  a  judi 
cial  purpose.  Our  historians  were  already  familiar  with  them  there. 


THE  COLONY  OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 


AND 


ITS    KELATIONS    TO    MASSACHUSETTS. 


By    WILLIAM    BRIGHAM. 


THE  COLONY  OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 


AND 


ITS    RELATIONS    TO    MASSACHUSETTS. 


THE  colony  of  New  Plymouth  comprised  all  the  present 
territory  of  the  counties  of  Plymouth,  Barnstable,  and 
Bristol,  with  the  exception  of  Hingham,  which  was  a  part  of 
the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  It  had  also  an  additional 
strip  on  its  southern  border,  now  included  in  the  State  of 
Rhode  Island.  Its  history  as  a  civil  community  begins  on  the 
signing  of  the  compact,  on  the  eleventh  of  November,  1620,  in 
the  cabin  of  the  "  Mayflower,"  while  she  lay  at  anchor  in  the 
harbor  of  Cape  Cod ;  and  ends  on  its  union  with  Massachusetts, 
under  the  province  charter,  in  1691,  —  a  period  of  seventy-one 
years.  It  began  with  a  population  of  about  one  hundred  per 
sons  ;  and  terminated  with  a  population  of  about  nine  thousand. 
It  began  in  doubt  and  uncertainty,  in  what  they  called  a 
"  remote  corner  of  the  earth ; "  but  the  threescore  and  eleven 
years  of  its  existence  enabled  its  people  to  accomplish  the  great 
purposes  for  which  they  endured  and  suffered  so  much,  and  to 
establish  institutions  and  principles  of  civil  government,  which 
are  now,  and  will  ever  be,  the  pride  and  admiration  of  every 
true  friend  of  freedom. 

This  colony  was  the  first  permanent  European  settlement  in 
New  England.  Other  and  earlier  attempts  had  been  made,  but 
had  failed.  An  English  colony  had  been  established  at  James 
town,  in  Virginia,  a  few  years  before  ;  and  the  French  had  made 
a  feeble  settlement  in  Canada.  These  two  colonies  were  their 
only  European  neighbors ;  and  either  of  them  was  as  incapable 
of  affording  aid  to  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth,  if  they  had  been 


166  THE   COLONY   OF   NEW   PLYMOUTH 

so  disposed,  as  if  they  had  been  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
Previous  to  this  settlement,  Smith  and  Gosnold  had  sailed  along 
the  shores  of  New  England,  explored  various  places  on  its 
coast;  and  had  published  accounts  of  their  voyages  at  home, 
giving  a  most  favorable  impression  of  its  climate  and  soil,  and 
the  thousand  sources  of  wealth  which  must  follow  its  occupa 
tion. 

Early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  people  of  England  were 
looking  with  intense  interest  towards  the  new  world,  not  only  as 
a  place  for  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  but  as  a  refuge  from  the 
oppressions  and  burdens  which  they  began  so  severely  to  feel. 
It  was  this  state  of  feeling  which  induced  James  I.,  in  1606,  to 
grant  a  charter  to  two  companies  to  settle  Virginia,  which  was 
then  the  name  given  to  the  whole  country.  This  charter  granted 
a  strip  of  land  on  the  coast,  about  one  hundred  miles  wide,  and 
extending  from  the  thirty-fourth  to  the  forty-fifth  degree  of 
north  latitude.  The  first,  or  southern  colony,  had  permission  to 
settle  anywhere  between  the  thirty-fourth  and  forty-first  degrees ; 
and  the  northern  colony,  anywhere  between  the  thirty-eighth 
and  forty-fifth  degrees ;  but  neither  colony  was  permitted  to 
settle  within  one  hundred  miles  of  the  one  which  should  make 
the  first  settlement. 

I  refer  to  this  charter  now,  and  shall  refer  to  other  charters, 
merely  to  enable  us  fully  to  understand  some  of  the  difficulties, 
under  which  the  Plymouth  colony  labored,  during  their  whole 
history.  The  Pilgrims  before  leaving  home  had  obtained  a 
charter  from  the  southern  colony,  undoubtedly  expecting  to 
settle  within  its  limits ;  but  when  they  arrived  at  Cape  Cod, 
they  found  themselves  beyond  the  limits  of  the  southern  Virginia 
company,  and,  of  course,  their  charter  was  of  no  use  to  them  in 
that  position. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances,  and  for  these  reasons,  that 
they  established,  under  their  own  hands,  a  Constitution  of 
government  in  the  famous  compact  of  Nov.  11,  1620,  in  which 
they  acknowledged  themselves  the  subjects  of  King  James,  and 
say,— 

"  That  having  undertaken  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  advancement  of 
Christian  faith,  and  the  honor  of  our  king  and  country,  a  voyage  to  plant 
the  first  colony  in  the  northern  parts  of  Virginia,  do  by  these  presents,  sol- 


AND   ITS   RELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  167 

emnly  and  mutually,  in  the  presence  of  God  and  one  another,  covenant 
and  combine  ourselves  in  a  civil  body  politic,  for  our  better  ordering  and 
preservation,  and  furtherance  of  the  ends  aforesaid.  And  by  virtue' 
hereof,  do  enact,  constitute,  and  form  such  just  and'equal  laws,  ordinances, 
acts,  constitutions,  and  offices,  from  time  to  time,  as  shall  be  thought  most 
meet  arid  convenient  for  the  good  of  the  colony,  unto  which  we  promise 
all  due  submission  and  obedience. 

"  In  witness  whereof,  we  have  hereunder  subscribed  our  names  at 
Cape  Cod,  the  eleventh  of  November,  in  the  year  of  the  reign  of  our 
sovereign  lord,  King  James  of  England,  France,  and  Ireland,  the  eigh 
teenth ;  and  of  Scotland,  the  fifty-fourth.  Anno  Domini,  1620." 

This  was  their  whole  constitution  of  government  then,  and 
for  ten  years  afterwards,  and  was  in  fact  their  real  constitu 
tion,  during  the  whole  history  of  the  colony.  Subsequent 
events  gave  them  other  claims  of  authority ;  but  how  valid  these 
claims  were,  we  shall  see  in  what  thereafter  took  place. 

This  agreement  bearing  the  names  of  nearly  all  the  adult  male 
members  of  the  company,  and  executed  on  the  very  day  of  their 
arrival  at  Cape  Cod,  and  before  any  one  had  left  the  ship,  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  a  civil  government,  under  which  they 
could  enact  laws,  and  protect  and  control  their  little  community, 
is  certainly  one  of  the  most  remarkable  acts  of  these  remarkable 
men.  The  history  of  the  world  had  afforded  them  no  precedent 
of  this  character.  This  is  the  first  of  written  constitutions  the 
world  ever  knew,  and  is  the  sole  invention  of  the  Pilgrims.  It 
established  principles  which  were  then  new  and  untried.  All 
were  made  equal  before  the  law,  and  had  an  equal  voice  in  the 
government.  All  were  compelled  to  submit  to  the  majority,  and 
to  give  obedience  to  such  laws  as  the  majority  should  enact. 
There  was  no  division  of  powers,  no  creation  of  offices,  no 
restraints  or  checks  upon  the  government.  The  majority  rule  of 
all  the  people  was  their  only  guide.  These  principles  have 
since  become  familiar  to  the  American  mind,  and  have  in  fact 
become  the  basis  of  all  our  governments ;  and  two  and  a  half 
centuries  have  proved  the  truth  of  the  remark  of  Governor 
Bradford,  that  "  such  an  act,  under  their  circumstances,  might  be 
as  firm  as  any  patent,  and  in  some  respects  more  sure."  1 

At  about  the  time  of  the  signing  of  this  compact,  and  without 

1  Bradford's  Hist.,  p.  89  ;  Morton's  Memorial,  p.  37. 


168  THE   COLONY   OF   NEW   PLYMOUTH 

the  knowledge  of  the  Pilgrims,  the  great  patent  of  New  Eng 
land  was  granted  to  forty  persons,  called  the  "  Council  estab 
lished  at  Plymouth,  in  the  County  of  Devon,  for  the  Planting  and 
Governing  of  New  England  in  America."  It  superseded  the  first 
grant  to  the  northern  Virginia  colony;  and  granted  all  the 
territory  from  forty  to  forty-eight  degrees  north  latitude,  and 
from  sea  to  sea.  It  was  this  extensive  grant,  and  those  that 
followed  it,  that  afterwards  created  conflicting  claims  among  the 
American  colonies,  which  were  not  fully  settled  till  after  the 
Revolution,  and  the  Independence  of  the  country. 

This  charter  gave  the  company  most  extensive  powers,  and 
included  within  its  limits  the  territory  which  the  Pilgrims  had 
settled.  As  this  was  a  charter  from  the  King,  it  gave  to  that 
company  rights  superior  to  those  of  the  Pilgrims,  which  rested 
on  no  higher  claim  than  "  squatter  sovereignty." 

As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  Pilgrims  had  learned  what  this 
grant  was,  they  applied  to  the  Council  at  Plymouth,  for  a  grant 
of  the  soil  which  they  had  taken  possession  of.  A  charter  was 
obtained  in  the  name  of  John  Pierce,  in  1621 ;  but  it  was  so 
imperfect,  and  so  little  suited  to  their  wants  and  condition,  that 
the  colonists  never  used  it.  It  gave  them  no  distinct  and  sepa 
rate  territory ;  but  a  grant  of  a  certain  number  of  acres  to  each 
settler.  It  really  accomplished  nothing  towards  the  establishment 
of  a  civil  government,  which  the  Pilgrims  had  so  much  at  heart. 

In  1629,  another  charter  was  granted  to  William  Bradford  and 
his  associates,  which,  if  it  had  been  ratified  and  approved  by  the 
King,  would  have  fully  answered  the  purposes  in  view.  It  defined 
the  boundaries  of  the  territory,  and  gave  them,  nominally  at  least, 
power  to  make  such  laws  and  regulations  as  should  be  necessary. 

But  this  charter  came  from  the  Council  at  Plymouth.  That 
Council  could  grant  the  soil,  but  could  not  confer  on  the  colony 
powers  of  government.  A  grant  of  these  powers  could  come 
only  from  the  King.  And  it  was  for  this  reason,  that,  during  their 
whole  history,  they  exhibited  constant  anxiety  about  it,  and 
were  from  time  to  time  seeking  the  King's  ratification.  They 
sought  it  from  Charles  I.,  and  also  at  the  restoration  of  Charles 
II.;  but  they  met  with  no  success  from  either.  It  was  from  this 
want  of  authority  that  they  lost  the  territory  on  their  southern 
border,  —  the  charter  to  the  Rhode  Island  colony  from  the  King 


AND   ITS   RELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  169 

extending  over  and  beyond  the  boundary  of  the  Plymouth 
colony,  and  being  regarded  as  of  higher  authority  than  the 
charter  of  the  latter,  which  the  King  had  never  sanctioned. 

The  colonists  of  Massachusetts  Bay  were  more  fortunate. 
They  had  a  grant  of  their  charter  both  from  the  King  and  the 
Council  at  Plymouth.  It  was  made  before  they  left  home,  and 
was  brought  with  them  as  their  constitution  of  government. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  compact  of  1620  was  the  basis  of 
the  Plymouth  Constitution.  Under  it  they  enacted  laws  and 
accomplished  the  great  ends  of  civil  government,  and  it  was 
always  referred  to  as  affording  the  highest  evidence  of  their 
authority.  In  1636,  the  General  Court,  in  declaring  the  sources 
of  the  authority  of  this  government,  and  the  title  to  its  lands, 
cited  this  compact,  the  treaty  with  Massasoit,  the  grant  from  the 
Indians,  and  the  charters  to  Pierce,  and  to  Bradford  and  his  asso 
ciates.  But  the  enumeration  of  so  many  grounds  of  authority 
betrays  a  consciousness  of  the  weakness  of  their  several  claims, 
and  this  may  have  been  a  prominent  cause  of  a  less  determined 
resistance  to  the  demands  of  the  commissioners  of  Charles  II. 
than  was  made  by  their  neighbors  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay. 

During  the  first  ten  years  the  Plymouth  colony  was  very 
feeble.  At  the  end  of  the  first  winter  there  were  but  fifty-one  per 
sons,  three-fourths  of  whom  were  women  and  children.  In  1627, 
their  number  had  increased  to  one  hundred  and  sixty-six.  There 
was  some  increase  afterwards,  but  at  the  time  of  the  settlement  of 
Boston  in  1630,  they  probably  did  not  exceed  two  hundred  and 
fifty.  In  the  charter  to  Bradford,  it  is  stated  that  the  population 
of  the  colony  was  near  three  hundred  persons.  This  was  un 
doubtedly  an  exaggeration,  for  the  whole  evidence  shows  that  it 
did  not  exceed  the  number  before-mentioned.  But  feeble  though 
it  was,  it  was  nevertheless  a  real  success.  Ten  years  had  made 
it  a  well-established  community.  They  had  built  their  dwellings 
and  had  established  their  farms,  cultivating  the  soil,  and  obtain 
ing  therefrom  ample  means  for  their  support.  They  had  suffered 
from  famine  and  endured  almost  every  privation,  yet  they  did 
not  complain ;  nor  were  they  discouraged,  but  trusted  in  God, 
believing  that  better  things  were  in  store  for  them.  Their  faith 
in  the  future  was  never  shaken.  They  never  doubted  that  this 
was  their  home,  and  that  they  should  be  the  founders  of  a  free, 


170  THE  COLONY  OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 

God-fearing  people.  When  the  "  Mayflower  "  left  them  in  April, 
1621,  on  her  return  voyage,  not  one  of  the  surviving  Pilgrims 
went  back  with  her;  but  all  stayed  in  their  new  home,  already 
consecrated  by  the  graves  of  one-half  of  their  number.  They 
planted  their  seed,  and  when  the  harvest  was  gathered,  appointed 
a  day  of  thanksgiving  for  their  mutual  rejoicing,  and  thus  un 
consciously  established  an  institution  which  has  already  become 
national,  and  has  given  joy  to  at  least  eight  generations  of  their 
descendants. 

Fortunately,  we  have  a  record  of  most  of  the  public  acts  of 
this  colony ;  and  from  that  record,  as  it  appears  in  their  laws, 
judicial  proceedings,  conveyances  of  land,  wills,  and  inventories 
of  property,  we  have  the  means  of  learning  their  character  and 
condition  almost  as  accurately  as  if  they  had  been  our  contem 
poraries.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  day  to  record  in  the  inven 
tory  of  every  deceased  person's  property,  a  detailed  statement  of 
every  article,  so  that  we  can  now  ascertain  how  many  shoes, 
what  clothing,  and  what  articles  of  furniture  each  man  had.  If 
he  had  any  books,  all  the  titles  were  given,  and  it  would  not  be 
difficult  to  give  a  list  of  every  volume  found  in  the  colony. 

For  the  first  ten  years  most  of  the  people  resided  in  Ply 
mouth.  This  was  necessary  for  their  protection.  They  had  no 
officers  but  a  governor,  with  at  first  one  assistant,  —  afterwards 
increased  to  seven,  —  and  a  constable.  All  the  freemen  met  in 
General  Court,  enacted  such  laws  and  made  such  orders  as  they 
needed,  and  tried  and  punished  offenders.  The  legislation  dur 
ing  this  period  was  very  meagre.  The  first  law  recorded  estab 
lished  trial  by  jury  in  all  cases,  both  civil  and  criminal.  This 
was  in  1623,  showing  their  strong  attachment  to  an  institution 
of  their  native  country,  which  has  ever  been  regarded  as  the 
protector  and  birthright  of  the  English  race.  In  1626,  they  en 
acted  that  no  boards  or  timber  should  be  exported  from  the 
colony  without  the  consent  of  the  Governor  and  Council ;  and 
this  was  done  too,  as  the  act  expressed  it,  from  fear  that  they 
should  not  have  timber  enough  for  their  own  use,  though  the 
whole  country  was  filled  with  it,  —  a  fear  that  the  experience 
of  two  hundred  years  has  proved  to  be  wholly  groundless. 

The  right  of  the  franchise  during  the  early  history  of  the 
colony  was  confined  to  the  freemen :  afterwards  in  the  election 


VERS 


V  ^     Of 

^^^A  L  i  FO  R  NJ^^^ 


AND  ITS  RELATIONS  TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  171 

of  deputies,  and  in  the  management  of  town  affairs,  other  per 
sons  were  allowed  to  vote  ;  and  so  general  was  the  franchise,  that 
in  some  towns  a  majority  of  voters  were  not  freemen.  Tn  1669, 
none  were  allowed  to  vote  in  town  affairs  but  freemen,  or  free 
holders  of  twenty  pounds'  ratable  estate.  The  General  Court 
alone  admitted  freemen  ;  but  the  same  was  often  done  on  the 
recommendation  of  the  towns,  and  for  many  years  no  special 
qualifications  were  required;  but  in  1671  it  was  provided  — 

"  That  none  shall  be  admitted  a  freeman  of  this  corporation,  but  such 
as  are  one-and-twenty  years  of  age,  at  the  least,  and  have  the  testimony 
of  their  neighbors  that  they  are  of  sober  and  peaceable  conversation, 
orthodox  in  the  fundamentals  of  religion,  and  such  as  have  also  twenty 
pounds  of  ratable  estate  in  the  government."  1 

In  this  respect  they  differed  from  their  neighbors  in  Massachu 
setts,  where  a  voter  must  have  been  a  member  of  a  church. 
The  right  of  taking  away  the  franchise  in  case  of  crime  or  loss 
of  character  was  always  claimed  and  frequently  exercised  by  the 
General  Court.  The  right  of  suffrage  created  a  duty  on  the 
part  of  the  freeman,  and  if  he  failed  to  attend  the  Court,  he  sub 
jected  himself  to  a  penalty  of  ten  shillings.  The  right  of  suf 
frage  was  regarded  by  them,  as  it  always  will  be  by  all  men  who 
value  free  institutions,  as  a  right  which  should  never  be  neg 
lected,  and  one  in  which  the  whole  public,  as  well  as  the  individ 
ual,  have  an  interest. 

The  right  of  inquiring  into  the  fitness  of  the  deputies  was 
always  exercised,  and  in  1658  it  was  provided,  that  — 

"  The  General  Court  should,  on  being  assembled,  first  take  notice  of  their 
members,  and  if  any  were  found  unfit  for  such  a  trust,  that  they  and  the 
reasons  therefore  be  returned  to  the  town  from  which  they  were  sent,  that 
they  might  make  choice  of  more  able  and  fit  persons  to  send  in  their  stead  ;" 

a  right  which,  if  exercised  properly  and  fairly  in  some  modern 
assemblies,  would  leave  them  without  a  quorum. 

The  success  of  this  colony,  though  comparatively  small,  un 
doubtedly  did  much  to  promote  other  settlements  in  New  Eng 
land.  The  reports  of  Winslow  and  Bradford  were  read  eagerly 
at  home,  and  may  have  been  an  influential  cause  in  promoting 
the  settlement  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  But  whether  so  or  not,  the 
settlement  of  Massachusetts  was  a  most  auspicious  event  to 

1  Plymouth  Laws,  p.  258. 


172  THE   COLONY   OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 

the  colony  of  New  Plymouth.  It  established  at  once  as  their 
neighbors  a  community  of  intelligent  people,  having  the  same 
great  objects  in  view,  and  ready  at  all  times  to  exercise  towards 
them  their  friendly  offices,  and  afford  them  such  aid  and  protec 
tion  as  their  situation  required.  The  Massachusetts  colonists 
were  soon  numbered  by  thousands,  and  were  guided  by  men  of 
great  intelligence  and  purity.  Compared  with  the  people  of  Ply 
mouth,  they  were  rich,  and  able  to  supply  themselves  with  such 
things  as  were  necessary  to  the  successful  planting  of  a  colony. 
They  imported  at  once  large  numbers  of  neat  cattle,  horses,  sheep, 
goats,  and  swine,  so  that  in  four  or  five  years  they  had  an  ample 
supply  for  all  their  wants,  and  by  the  introduction  of  such  agri 
cultural  implements  as  were  known  and  used  at  that  day,  they 
were  enabled  at  once  to  cultivate  and  improve  their  lands,  and 
to  obtain  abundant  crops. 

The  prosperity  of  Massachusetts  soon  reacted  on  Plymouth ; 
and  of  the  great  tide  of  emigration  which  soon  set  in,  Plymouth 
received  her  proportional  part,  so  that  in  1643  its  population  had 
increased  to  three  thousand,  and  had  extended  beyond  Plymouth, 
establishing  several  other  towns  in  the  colony. 

This  increase  and  extension  of  population  required  a  more 
extensive  system  of  legislation,  and  in  1636  there  was  a  revision 
of  the  laws,  and  something  like  a  code  adopted.  Before  they 
adopted  their  code,  however,  they  made  a  declaration  as  a  funda 
mental  law  — 

"  That  no  imposition,  law,  or  ordinance  be  made  by  ourselves  or  others 
at  present  or  to  come,  but  such  as  shall  be  made  or  imposed  by  consent, 
according  to  the  free  liberties  of  the  state  and  kingdom  of  England,  and  no 
otherwise." 

The  very  doctrine  maintained  by  their  descendants  in  the 
Revolution,  and  the  violation  of  which  led  to  American  Inde 
pendence.  The  early  enunciation  of  this  doctrine  would  indicate, 
that  even  then  they  expected  and  intended  to  make  their  own 
laws,  and  not  to  be  governed  by  those  of  any  other  country. 

At  this  period,  there  was  a  secretary  who  kept  their  records, 
and  it  was  not  unusual  to  record  the  repeal  of  a  law  by  a  simple 
erasure,  giving  the  date  of  such  repeal.  This  appears  in  the 
forms  of  the  oaths  of  office,  which  as  first  drawn  required  the 
officer  to  swear  to  be  truly  loyal  to  our  Sovereign  Lord,  his  heirs 


AND   ITS  RELATIONS  TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  173 

and  successors.  After  the  Rebellion  in  England,  these  words 
were  erased,  and  the  words,  "the  State  and  Government  of 
England  as  it  now  stands,"  were  interlined.  At  the  Restoration, 
these  were  in  turn  erased,  and  the  original  restored. 

During  this  period  a  law  was  enacted,  making  it  penal  in  the 
sum  of  twenty  pounds  sterling  for  any  one  elected  to  the  office 
of  governor  to  decline  the  service ;  a  fact  showing  that  the  race 
of  gubernatorial  candidates,  so  abundant  in  our  times,  had  not 
then  begun  to  exist. 

Till  1639,  all  the  freemen  assembled  together  for  the  enactment 
of  laws.  As  the  settlements  extended,  this  became  inconvenient, 
and  their  families  were  left  exposed.  At  first,  proxies  were 
allowed,  then  delegates  were  chosen  who  could  enact  laws ;  but 
they  were  subject  to  repeal  by  the  whole  body  of  freemen  at  the 
general  election.  In  fact,  during  the  whole  history  of  the  colony, 
though  most  of  the  laws  were  enacted  in  a  meeting  of  delegates 
from  the  towns,  yet  the  right  of  all  the  freemen  to  come  together 
and  take  the  legislation  into  their  own  hands  was  never  entirely 
abandoned. 

In  1658,  there  was  a  new  revision  of  the  laws,  and  the  secre 
tary  was  directed  to  send  a  manuscript  copy  of  this  revision  to 
every  town  in  the  colony,  and  the  towns  were  required  to  furnish 
the  secretary  with  the  necessary  paper  to  make  a  copy,  and  to 
have  them  read  publicly  once  a  year.  One  of  these  copies,  at 
least,  is  still  in  existence.  The  third  revision  was  in  1671,  when 
the  laws  for  the  first  time  were  printed.  Massachusetts  printed 
her  first  code  in  1648,  anticipating  Plymouth  in  this  respect 
twenty-three  years. 

These  laws  show  more  fully  than  any  thing  else,  what  were 
the  wants,  opinions,  and  policy  of  the  people.  The  charter  to 
Bradford  declared  that  the  tenure  of  their  lands  should  be,  as  of 
the  manor  of  East  Greenwich,  in  the  county  of  Kent,  —  an  old 
Saxon  tenure,  by  which  the  lands  descended  to  the  sons  equally, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  daughters.  This  tenure  was  adopted  in 
their  code  of  1636;  and  there  is  no  provision  of  law  making 
any  change  till  1685,  when  it  was  provided  that  all  the  lands 
should  descend  to  the  sons  equally,  except  that  the  oldest  son 
should  have  a  double  portion;  and  if  there  was  but  one  son, 
he  should  have  the  whole,  even  if  there  were  a  dozen  daughters 


174  THE   COLONY  OP  NEW  PLYMOUTH 

excluded.  There  was,  however,  a  provision  by  which  the  daugh 
ters  could  be  protected.  They  could  apply  to  the  County  Court 
for  an  allowance,  and  thereupon  the  Court  would  order  the  son 
or  sons  to  pay  a  fixed  sum  of  money  to  them,  if  they  thought  it 
expedient. 

Massachusetts  early  adopted  a  more  equitable  rule,  dividing 
the  lands  among  all  the  children,  the  sons  and  daughters  alike, 
except  that  the  oldest  son  had  a  double  portion,  —  a  system  that 
continued  through  the  whole  history  of  the  province,  and  was 
not  abolished  till  1789,  nine  years  after  the  adoption  of  our 
State  Constitution. 

This  rule  of  descent  in  Plymouth,  though  different  from  that 
of  Massachusetts,  was  often  rendered  inoperative  by  the  making 
of  wills.  These  often  provided  lands  for  the  daughters,  and  in 
some  cases  gave  the  oldest  son  a  double  portion.  Captain  Stand- 
ish  gave  a  double  portion  to  his  oldest  son.  This  system  of  a 
double  portion  to  the  oldest  son  was  borrowed  from  the  Jewish 
law,  and  seemed  to  our  ancestors  more  equitable  than  the  Eng 
lish  law  of  primogeniture. 

The  authority  to  make  disposition  of  property  by  will  was 
fully  recognized ;  and  many  of  the  colonists  availed  themselves 
of  it.  It  is  from  these  wills  that  we  learn  more  fully  than  from 
any  other  source  the  true  views  of  the  colonists.  They  often 
refer  to  the  object  of  their  coming  to  this  country,  express  their 
religious  belief,  and  a  desire  to  distribute  their  property  for  the 
glory  of  God,  and  the  good  of  the  colony,  not  forgetting  to  pro 
vide  for  the  education  of  their  children,  and  for  works  of  charity. 
Their  estates  were  very  small,  varying  from  .£50  to  £600;  and, 
of  course,  their  charitable  contributions  were  necessarily  small. 
As  they  had  no  money,  they  were  compelled  to  make  con 
tributions  from  their  domestic  animals  and  other  personal  prop 
erty.  The  church  to  which  they  belonged  was  seldom  forgotten. 
Dr.  Samuel  Fuller,  whose  will  was  proved  in  1633,  after  pro 
viding  for  his  family  and  friends,  says,  — 

"  I  give,  out  of  my  stock  of  cattle,  the  first  cow-calf  that  my  brown 
cow  shall  have,  to  the  church  of  God,  at  Plymouth,  to  be  employed  by 
the  Deacon  or  Deacons  of  the  said  church,  for  the  good  of  the  said  church, 
at  the  oversight  of  the  ruling  elders." 

Others  of  equal  generosity,  but  of  less  means,  gave  smaller 


AND   ITS   RELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  175 

things,  frequently  a  ewe-larnb,  which  was  not  only  a  common 
gift  to  the  church,  but  to  all  grandchildren  throughout  the  colony. 
These  gifts  appear  small,  but  it  must  be  recollected  that  they 
were  poor;  and  even  fifteen  years  later,  when  the  Commissioners 
of  the  United  Colonies  proposed  a  contribution  through  the 
colonies,  for  the  benefit  of  poor  students  at  Harvard  College,  they 
asked  only  for  a  peck  of  corn  from  each  family.  And  at  a  later 
date  there  was  an  actual  contribution  through  the  colony,  for  the 
benefit  of  Harvard  College ;  and  the  people  of  the  colony  showed 
their  interest  in  that  institution,  by  contributing  from  their  scanty 
means  corn  and  other  grains,  in  quantities  which  appear  at  this 
day  very  small.  Yet  even  these  were  most  acceptable  gifts ; 
and,  by  this  universal  good  will,  that  institution,  created  "  to 
prevent  learning  from  being  buried  in  the  graves  of  the  fathers," 
was  sustained,  and  its  usefulness  extended. 

The  inventories  which  were  presented  by  executors  and  ad 
ministrators,  show  some  very  curious  facts.  I  have  stated  that 
they  present  every  article  in  detail,  so  that  we  can  see  and  know, 
after  two  hundred  years,  exactly  what  furniture  and  clothing 
they  had,  even  to  the  number  of  chairs  and  shoes.  They  were 
all  provided  with  some  kind  of  gun  or  arms.  Some  of  them 
had  armor.  Their  cattle,  at  the  end  of  twenty  years,  had 
become  numerous,  and  constituted  a  considerable  part  of  their 
personal  property.  The  titles  of  all  their  books  are  given  in 
detail,  with  some  few  exceptions.  Dr.  Fuller's  medical  works 
are  described  in  his  inventory,  as  "  Physic  Books,"  and  were 
valued  at  £1 ;  and  his  chest  of  surgical  instruments  was  ap 
praised  at  X5,  making  the  whole  stock  of  books  and  instruments 
of  the  physician  of  the  colony,  of -the  value  of  £6.  All  of  them 
had  one  or  more  Bibles ;  and  generally  a  psalm-book,  together 
with  various  religious  books,  generally  an  exposition  of  Revela 
tions,  or  some  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  They  had 
spinning-wheels  almost  without  exception,  together  with  a  small 
quantity  of  hemp  and  flax,  from  which  they  manufactured  their 
own  clothing. 

In  the  inventory  of  Miles  Standish,  the  military  man  of  the 
colony,  I  find  about  the  usual  kinds  of  property.  He  had  a 
library  of  some  twenty  volumes,  among  which  were  three 
Bibles,  Caesar's  Commentaries,  and  a  law-book.  It  is  not 


176  THE  COLONY  OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 

stated  what  the  law-book  was,  but  it  is  one  of  the  few  found  in 
the  colony  for  thirty  years;  and  whether  it  contributed  any 
thing  to  a  knowledge  of  the  common  law  of  England,  does  not 
appear.  Of  his  instruments  of  war,  he  had  one  fowling-piece, 
three  muskets,  four  carbines,  two  small  guns,  one  old  barrel, 
one  sword,  one  cutlass,  and  three  belts. 

Of  his  furniture,  he  had  a  warming-pan,  a  frying-pan,  and  a 
cullender.  He  also  had  two  saddles,  a  pillion,  and  a  bridle  ; 
sixteen  pieces  of  pewter,  a  still,  a  malt-mill,  and  some  spinning- 
wheels.  It  also  appears  that  he  was  a  successful  farmer,  as  well 
as  warrior;  for  he  had  a  large  herd  of  cattle,  including  four 
oxen ;  and  the  product  of  his  farm  was  twenty-five  bushels 
of  corn,  eleven  bushels  of  wheat,  fourteen  bushels  of  rye,  and 
thirty  bushels  of  pease.  His  whole  property  amounted  to 
X358. 

Governor  Bradford  had  a  much  larger  estate  ;  and  from  the 
inventory  of  his  property,  it  appears  that  he  had  three  match 
lock  muskets;  a  snaphance  musket;  a  birding-piece ;  a  pistol,  and 
cutlass;  and  one  pair  of  old  bandelaires.  Of  his  furniture,  he  had 
four  leather  chairs;  one  great  leather  chair;  two  great  wooden 
chairs,  and  two  stools ;  also  two  spinning-wheels.  Of  his  cloth 
ing,  he  had  a  stuffe  suit,  with  silver  buttons ;  a  cloth  cloak,  faced 
with  taffety ;  a  pair  of  black  breeches,  and  a  red  waistcoat ;  one 
black  hat,  and  one  colored  one ;  one  pair  of  boots,  and  twenty- 
one  pairs  of  shoes.  He  had  some  hundred  volumes  of  books, 
among  which  are  two  Bibles ;  also  Mr.  Cotton's  answer  to  Mr. 
Williams,  which,  at  that  time,  excited  much  interest  in  the 
Plymouth  colony,  where  Mr.  Roger  Williams  resided  for  a  time, 
and  was  treated  with  great  kindness  and  consideration  by  many 
of  the  leading  men. 

I  give  this  as  a  specimen  of  the  property  which  some  of  the 
principal  men  of  the  colony  had.  Most  of  them  had  only  the 
furniture  necessary  to  furnish  a  log  hut,  or  a  dwelling  equally 
humble;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  there  is  more  furniture,  in 
value,  in  any  one  of  fifty  houses  in  Boston,  at  the  present  day, 
than  there  was  in  the  whole  Plymouth  colony  in  1650.  A  full 
statement  of  all  their  property,  as  it  appears  in  their  inventories, 
would  give  almost  as  accurate  an  idea  of  their  condition  as  we 
could  obtain  from  a  daguerreotype. 


AND  ITS  RELATIONS  TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  177 

In  the  judicial  proceedings  there  was  great  simplicity.  They 
intended  to  follow,  as  far  as  they  could,  the  common  law  of  Eng 
land.  But  they  had  few  law-books  and  no  lawyers ;  and  it  was 
not  always  easy  to  ascertain  what  the  common  law  was.  They 
discarded  all  the  cumbersome  forms  in  use  at  that  time  in  Eng 
land  ;  and  adopted  such  forms  as  their  own  good  sense  dictated. 
The  General  Court  was  the  only  Court  for  some  years ;  and  the 
Governor  and  assistants  tried  most  of  the  cases  during  the  whole 
history  of  the  colony.  For  some  years  their  deeds  of  land  were 
neither  signed  nor  sealed ;  but  an  acknowledgment  of  the  sale 
was  made  before  a  magistrate,  who  made  a  memorandum  of  it. 
They  had  a  grand  jury  to  find  an  indictment;  but  when  one  was 
found,  it  was  often  contained  in  two  or  three  lines,  and  meant 
what  it  said ;  and  a  common  man  could  understand  far  better 
what  the  charge  was,  than  he  could  in  the  excessive  verbiage  of 
some  more  modern  indictments. 

The  punishments  were  often  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
Courts;  but  they  were  chiefly  fines,  whipping,  placing  in  the 
stocks,  or  town  cage,  —  for  every  town  was  compelled  by  law  to 
have  a  cage. 

Their  criminal  law  was  remarkably  mild  for  that  day,  and  was 
mildly  administered.  At  the  revision  of  1636,  there  were  but 
eight  capital  offences.  At  that  time  there  were  twenty  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  thirty-one  in  England,  where  they  afterwards 
increased  to  upwards  of  two  hundred.  Baylies  informs  us,  that 
no  execution  ever  took  place  in  the  colony  for  any  crime  but 
murder.  In  this  he  is  not  strictly  correct ;  though  executions  for 
other  crimes  were  very  rare,  and  perhaps  there  was  but  a  single 
exception  to  the  statement  which  the  historian  of  the  colony  has 
made.  At  any  rate,  more  trials  for  a  capital  offence  have  taken 
place  in  Massachusetts,  during  the  year  1868,  than  all  the  trials 
of  that  character  which  took  place  in  this  colony  during  its  whole 
existence.  Crimes  of  the  highest  character  were  very  rare.  Most 
of  the  offences  actually  punished  would  have  been  passed  over 
at  the  present  day  without  notice.  Taking  tobacco,  smoking, 
laughing  in  public  religious  meetings,  inveigling  the  affections 
of  young  girls  without  the  consent  of  their  parents,  were  all 
offences  which  they  could  not  tolerate ;  and  they,  and  others  of 
like  character,  make  up  the  great  part'of  the  crimes  which  en- 

12 


178  THE   COLONY   OF   NEW   PLYMOUTH 

titled  the  guilty  one  to  a  moderate  whipping,  or  a  temporary 
confinement  in  the  stocks,  or  town  cage. 

There  is  nothing  more  erroneous  than  to  suppose  that  the 
Pilgrims,  or  the  people  of  Plymouth,  were  harsh  or  severe  in 
their  laws,  or  in  their  mode  of  executing  them.  The  reverse  is 
the  actual  truth.  There  is  not  an  instance  of  a  civilized  com 
munity,  certainly  not  of  that  day,  whose  criminal  code  was  so 
mild,  or  whose  citizens  were  more  obedient  to  the  laws  under 
which  they  lived.  Where  their  own  laws  were  defective,  they 
had  recourse  to  the  law  of  God.  There  was  a  law  against 
witchcraft,  or  compaction  with  the  devil ;  but  no  person  was  ever 
tried  for  that  offence.  There  was  a  law  against  Quaker  Ran- 
tors ;  but  no  Quaker  had  a  hair  of  his  head  hurt.  Gorton  pre 
sented  to  the  Court  a  railing  accusation,  which,  in  modern  times, 
would  have  sent  him  to  the  lunatic  asylum ;  yet  they  took  no 
further  notice  of  it,  than  to  order  it  to  be  recorded  in  their  public 
records,  thus  perpetuating  the  evidence  of  their  own  forbearance 
and  discretion,  and  the  folly  and  malice  of  their  accuser. 

They  intended,  undoubtedly,  in  their  judicial  proceedings,  to 
follow  the  common  law  of  England.  This  they  claimed  as  their 
birthright.  But  they  were  not  educated  to  the  law,  and  they  did 
not  always  know  what  was  the  law  of  their  native  country. 
They  were  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  law  of  Moses ;  and 
they  sometimes  found  it  better  suited  to  their  condition  than  the 
law  of  England ;  and  when  it  was  so,  they  did  not  hesitate  to 
adopt  it.  There  were  no  lawyers,  by  profession  or  education, 
for  many  years ;  and  it  was  not  until  1671,  that  the  law  expressly 
authorized  any  party  to  employ  one  or  two  attorneys  to  manage 
his  case,  but  on  the  express  condition  that  they  should  do  noth 
ing  "  to  deceive  the  Court  or  to  darken  the  case ; "  a  provision 
which,  perhaps,  might  be  adopted  with  profit  at  the  present 
time. 

In  this  respect,  Massachusetts  had  a  decided  advantage  over 
Plymouth.  Her  early  emigrants  were  many  of  them  either  edu 
cated  to  the  law,  or  at  least  conversant  with  it :  all  the  laws  and 
records  show  this.  They  adopted  the  substance,  without  the  use 
of  the  technicalities,  of  the  law  at  home.  Their  conveyances  of 
land  were  in  form,  their  laws  clearly  and  properly  drawn,  and 
their  judicial  proceedings  preserving  the  form  and  order  practised 


AND   ITS   RELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS  179 

at  home.  The  leading  men  of  Plymouth  always  sought  the 
advice  of  the  leading  men  of  Massachusetts,  and  they  were  happy 
to  follow  it ;  and  in  nothing  is  the  influence  of  Massachusetts 
more  apparent  than  in  the  laws.  Massachusetts  was  then  the 
leading  colony  in  New  England,  and  her  influence  on  all  the 
other  colonies  is  very  striking;  and  it  is  not  unusual  to  find  her 
laws  copied,  word  for  word,  and  adopted  by  the  other  colonies. 
This  influence  was  very  much  increased  by  the  formation  of  the 
Confederacy  in  1643,  which  brought  the  colonies  into  more  inti 
mate  relations,  and  united  them  upon  various  matters  necessary 
for  their  defence.  The  recommendations  of  the  Commissioners 
of  the  United  Colonies  were  generally  treated  with  respect  by 
the  local  legislatures,  and  oftentimes  adopted  by  all  of  them  at 
about  the  same  time.  These  Commissioners  did  not  confine 
themselves  to  the  questions  of  peace  and  war,  or  of  foreign 
commerce,  but  considered  most  matters  connected  with  the 
prosperity  of  the  colonies.  If  any  one  was  lacking  in  the  means 
of  education,  or  in  the  support  of  a  learned  ministry,  they  did 
not  hesitate  to  call  attention  to  the  fact,  and  to  suggest  a  remedy. 
The  influence  of  this  Confederacy  on  the  policy  and  fortunes  of 
the  several  colonies  would  be  an  interesting  subject  of  inquiry; 
and  it  would  undoubtedly  appear  that  this  union  was  one  of  the 
important  series  of  events,  which  not  only  sustained  and  pro 
tected  New  England  in  her  weakness  and  infancy,  but  which 
finally  led  to  the  independence  of  the  country,  and  the  formation 
of  our  present  national  government 

In  ecclesiastical  matters,  there  was  a  difference  between  Mas 
sachusetts  and  Plymouth.  The  Plymouth  colonists  were  Brown- 
ists,  or  Separatists.  They  had  separated  themselves  wholly  from 
the  Church  of  England,  and  maintained  the  doctrine  of  Inde 
pendency.  The  Massachusetts  colonists  had  not,  when  they 
left  home,  wholly  so  separated  themselves,  but  were  connected 
with  the  mother  church,  though  protesting  against  its  service 
and  ritual.  But  on  finding  themselves  in  a  new  country,  they 
soon  discovered  that  there  was  no  material  difference  between 
them  and  the  Independents  at  Plymouth.  The  Pilgrims  at  Ply 
mouth  assisted  in  the  organization  of  the  church  at  Salem,  and 
Governor  Bradford  gave  them  the  right  hand  of  fellowship.  In 
ecclesiastical  matters,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  example  of  Ply- 


180  THE   COLONY  OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 

mouth  exercised  an  important  influence  over  the  churches  of 
Massachusetts :  both,  in  a  short  time,  became  branches  of  one 
denomination,  which  has  always  been  known  as  Congregational. 
Plymouth  adhered  to  its  system  with  great  strictness,  and  Mas 
sachusetts  substantially  adopted  it.  The  Plymouth  churches  sang 
from  the  Psalter  of  Ainsworth  through  their  whole  history,  but 
Massachusetts  prepared  a  version  of  the  Psalms  for  herself,  which 
was  used  very  generally  in  her  churches  for  more  than  a  century, 
and  was  known  as  the  New-England  version. 

The  Plymouth  colonists  were  zealous  in  establishing  churches 
and  in  supporting  public  worship,  but  it  was  many  years  after 
the  settlement  before  they  supported  their  ministers  by  a  general 
tax. 

But  in  process  of  time  there  began  to  be  some  complaint  that 
the  ministers  were  not  properly  supported,  and  in  1655  the  mag 
istrates  were  ordered  — 

"  to  use  all  gentle  means  to  pursuade  them  to  do  their  duty,  but  if  any  of 
them  shall  not  be  reclaimed  thereby,  but  shall  persist  through  plain  obsti 
nacy  against  an  ordinance  of  God,  that  then  it  shall  be  in  the  power  of 
the  magistrate  to  use  such  other  means  as  may  put  them  on  their  duty." 

These  gentle  means  of  persuasion  did  not  answer  the  purpose ; 
and,  in  a  few  years  after,  the  legal  obligation  to  support  public 
worship  throughout  the  colony  was  established  bylaw,  and  pretty 
strictly  enforced. 

The  Plymouth  colonists  were  not  so  much  wiser  than  the  rest 
of  the  world,  as  to  avoid  all  errors  in  political  economy  and  legis 
lation.  They  undertook  much  which  modern  experience  has 
shown  to  be  impracticable.  In  1638  they  fixed  the  wages  of  a 
laborer  at  twelvepence  per  day  and  board,  or  eighteen  pence 
without  board,  allowing  but  sixpence  a  day  for  board.  They 
also  provided,  that  no  single  person  who  did  not  belong  to  the 
family  should  reside  in  it  without  the  consent  of  the  Governor 
and  Council.  They  attempted  to  fix  the  price  of  corn  and  other 
grains,  and  to  determine  for  what  sum  they  should  be  received  in 
pay.  In  1669  the  constables  of  every  town  were  ordered  to  look 
after  such  as  sleep  or  play  about  the  meeting-house,  in  times  of 
the  public  worship  of  God,  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  to  report  their 
names  to  the  Court ;  and  it  is  not  unusual  to  find  that  persons 


AND   ITS  EELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  181 

were  fined  for  these  offences.  At  that  time  the  men  sat  on  one 
side  of  the  meeting-house,  and  the  women  on  the  other,  and  the 
children  by  themselves  with  some  one  to  keep  them  in  order. 
In  the  church  at  Amsterdam,  a  deaconess  was  created  to  look 
after  the  children  and  sit  among  them  with  a  birchen  rod,  ready 
to  inflict  summary  punishment  on  any  poor  child  who  was  so 
much  of  a  mortal  that  he  could  not  sit  two  whole  hours,  in  that 
grave  assembly,  without  seeing  something  which  would  render 
it  impossible  for  him  to  suppress  a  smile.  The  wonder  is,  not 
that  they  laughed,  but  that  they  kept  sober  at  all.  In  1651  it 
was  made  penal  for  any  one  to  neglect  public  worship,  and  sub 
jected  him  to  a  fine  of  ten  shillings.  There  was  then  about  the 
same  difficulty  as  to  a  license  law  as  now,  yet  they  had  the  good 
sense  to  make  the  owner  of  an  estate,  where  an  intoxicated  man 
was  found,  liable,  rather  than  the  intoxicated  man  himself. 

In  1646  a  law  was  enacted  which  shows  that  there  has  been 
a  great  change  in  the  business  habits  of  our  legislators.  By  this 
law,  the  General  Court  was  required  to  meet  in  the  morning  at 
seven  o'clock  in  summer,  and  at  eight  in  winter,  and  to  remain 
together  till  half-past  eleven  o'clock,  when  they  adjourned  for 
dinner,  —  that  being  then  the  usual  dinner-hour.  After  dinner 
they  were  required  to  hold  another  session,  till  such  hour  as  the 
Governor  saw  fit ;  and,  in  order  to  insure  punctuality  and  con 
stant  attendance,  each  member  was  liable  to  a  fine  of  sixpence 
for  tardiness,  and  a  like  amount  for  each  hour's  absence  during 
the  session :  a  provision  of  law  which  we  commend  to  all  our 
legislators  who  desire  a  short  session,  if  there  are  any  such. 

The  organization  of  towns  was  substantially  the  same  in  the 
colonies  of  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts.  They  were  organized 
for  the  transaction  of  such  matters  as  related  to  their  local 
interests,  such  as  maintaining  highways,  supporting  public  wor 
ship,  and,  at  a  later  period  in  the  history  of  the  colony,  public 
schools.  They  were  also  required  to  support  their  own  poor, 
and  to  train  their  own  men  in  the  art  of  war.  The  towns  sent 
the  deputies  to  the  General  Court,  and  recommended  candidates 
for  freemen.  The  selectmen  held  courts  for  the  trial  of  small 
causes.  In  short,  the  towns  were  then,  as  now,  small  civil 
communities,  exercising  all  the  powers  of  self-government  in  ail 
matters  relating  to  their  own  local  affairs. 


182  THE   COLONY   OF   NEW   PLYMOUTH 

Plymouth  was  far  behind  Massachusetts  in  the  support  of 
public  schools.  In  1663,  the  General  Court  advised  the  towns 
"  to  set  up  a  schoolmaster  to  train  up  children  to  reading  and 
writing."  In  1673,  the  profits  of  the  Cape  fishery  were  appro 
priated  to  the  support  of  a  public  school  at  Plymouth.  In  1677, 
every  town  having  twelve  families  was  required  to  support  a 
public  grammar  school.  This  is  really  the  first  act  requiring  the 
support  of  public  schools.  Yet,  notwithstanding  this,  there  is 
ample  evidence  that  education  was  not  neglected.  This  was  a 
part  of  the  religion  of  the  Puritans,  and  in  their  indentures  and 
wills  they  made  provision  for  it  so  far  as  they  could.  In  the  in 
fancy  of  the  colony,  they  were  ready  to  do,  and  did  do,  voluntarily 
what  they  afterwards  required  to  be  done  by  authority  of  law. 

On  the  24th  of  April,  1685,  James  II.  was  duly  proclaimed  at 
Plymouth.  It  soon  became  apparent,  however,  that  he  had  no 
more  regard  for  his  subjects  at  Plymouth  than  at  home.  The 
charters  granted  by  his  predecessors  offered  no  obstacle  to  the 
furtherance  of  his  schemes.  It  made  little  difference  with  him 
whether  the  charter  came  from  the  Council  at  Plymouth,  or  was 
a  direct  royal  grant.  These  charters  had  existed  for  more  than 
half  a  century,  and  had  been  granted  for  the  purpose  of  encour 
aging  emigration  to  New  England,  and  under  them  nourishing 
colonies  had  grown  up.  During  the  troublesome  times  in  Eng 
land,  the  people  had  enjoyed  the  favor  of  utter  neglect  from  the 
home  government,  James  looked  with  no  favor  on  the  people 
of  New  England  or  their  institutions.  They  had  from  necessity 
established  their  own  governments  and  laws,  and  these  were 
not  in  accordance  with  his  arbitrary  schemes.  He  knew  that 
they  had  no  attachment  to  any  of  the  Stuart  race.  Their 
charters  were  to  him  mere  cobwebs^  but  still  they  were  incon 
venient,  and  must  be  swept  away.  So  far  as  related  to  Ply 
mouth,  this  was  done  in  the  most  summary  manner,  and  without 
any  of  the  legal  machinery  used  to  annul  the  charter  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay. 

Sir  Edmund  Andros  was  appointed  Governor  of  New  Eng 
land,  and  made  the  instrument  for  the  subversion  of  their 
governments.  And  notwithstanding  what  has  lately  been  'said 
in  his  vindication,  his  conduct  towards  the  people  of  the  Plymouth 
colony  was  cruel,  arbitrary,  and  unjust.  For  three  years  neither 


AND   ITS  RELATIONS  TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  183 

General  Court  nor  town  meetings  were  permitted;  land  titles 
were  deemed  invalid ;  and  all  the  powers  of  self-government 
which  the  Pilgrims  and  their  descendants  had  claimed  and 
exercised  for  three  generations,  were  held  in  contempt,  and 
totally  subverted. 

But  there  is  a  limit  beyond  which  tyranny  cannot  go.  That 
was  soon  reached  by  Andros,  and  the  news  of  his  overthrow  and 
imprisonment  by  the  patriotic  people  of  Boston  gave  universal 
joy  throughout  the  Pilgrim  colony.  They  at  once  resumed  their 
former  government,  and  the  Revolution  in  England  gave  them 
full  faith  in  their  ability  to  acquire  a  new  charter,  which  would 
secure  a  separate  and  permanent  government. 

To  accomplish  this  end,  they  appointed  as  their  agents  Sir 
Henry  Ashurst,  Rev.  Ichabod  Wiswell,  of  Duxbury,  and  Rev. 
Increase  Mather,  of  Boston.  Mather  was  then  in  England, 
having  left  Boston  secretly  for  the  purpose  of  laying  the  com 
plaints  of  Massachusetts  before  the  King.  The  result  of  the 
negotiations  of  these  agents  led  to  the  suspicion  that  Mather 
acted  for  the  interests  of  Massachusetts  rather  than  of  Plymouth. 
Such  was  the  belief  of  Wiswell,  who,  in  a  letter  to  Governor 
Hinckley,  says,  — 

"  All  the  frame  of  heaven  moves  on  one  axis,  and  the  whole  of  New 
England's  interests  seems  designed  to  be  loaden  on  one  bottom,  and  her 
particular  motion  to  concentrate  to  the  Massachusetts  tropic.  You  know 
who  were  wont  to  trot  after  the  Bay  horse.  I  do  believe  that  Plymouth's 
silence,  Hampshire's  neglect,  and  the  rashness  and  influence  of  one  who 
fled  from  New  England  in  disguise  by  night,  has  not  a  little  contributed 
to  our  disappointment." 

Mather,  however,  always  claimed  to  have  acted  in  good  faith, 
and  to  have  prevented  the  annexation  of  Plymouth  to  New 
York,  in  whose  charter  it  was  at  first  actually  included.  And 
so  far  as  we  have  any  evidence  on  this  subject,  it  appears  that 
when  Mather  found  it  was  impossible  to  procure  a  charter  for 
the  separate  and  independent  existence  of  Plymouth,  he  made 
all  laudable  efforts  to  secure  its  union  with  Massachusetts. 
This  was  undoubtedly  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the 
people  of  Plymouth,  who  preferred  a  union  with  Massachusetts, 
if  any  union  was  to  take  place  at  all. 


184  THE   COLONY   OF   NEW   PLYMOUTH 

Upon  the  union  of  the  two  colonies  under  the  province 
charter,  it  was  provided  that  the  local  laws  of  each  should 
remain  in  full  force,  —  first,  for  six  months,  and  afterwards  indef 
initely  till  altered  by  the  province  legislature.  The  institutions 
and  laws  of  both  were  so  nearly  alike  that  it  was  no  difficult 
matter  to  establish  a  uniform  system  over  both  portions.  Some 
alterations  were  made  by  express  enactment,  and  some  by  silent 
acquiescence.  Of  the  latter  class  was  the  famous  Massachusetts 
Ordinance  of  1647  relating  to  the  riparian  ownership  of  flats  on 
tide-waters,  which  has  been  adopted  in  that  portion  of  our  Com 
monwealth  for  more  than  a  century. 

It  would  hardly  be  just  to  speak  of  the  colony  of  Plymouth, 
without  referring  to  the  charge  of  bribery  against  the  captain  of 
the  "  Mayflower."  It  is  said  that  the  Pilgrims  intended  to  have 
settled  near  the  Hudson  River,  but  that  the  Dutch  secretly  bribed 
the  captain  of  the  "  Mayflower"  to  bring  them  to  Cape  Cod. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  such  was  their  intention ;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  account  for  the  change  in  the  place  of  settlement 
by  making  so  gross  a  charge  against  the  captain.  It  was  first 
made  by  Morton,  nearly  fifty  years  after  the  event.  He  says  he 
has  late  and  certain  intelligence  of  the  fact,1  but  refers  to  no 
authority ;  and  from  that  time  to  the  present  no  record  or  other 
writing  has  been  found  which  has  the  least  tendency  to  sustain 
the  charge.  The  charge  is  that  the  Dutch  gave  a  bribe.  It 
must  of  course  have  been  known  to  several  persons,  who  would 
have  been  likely  to  have  left  some  official  record  or  intimation 
of  so  important  a  fact ;  yet  none  has  been  found,  though  there 
has  been,  during  the  last  twenty  years,  a  most  thorough  examina 
tion  of  the  Dutch  as  well  as  the  English  records  relative  to  the 
Pilgrims,  the  absence  of  which  is  strong  evidence  that  the 
charge  is  not  true.  The  evidence  of  Morton  must  have  been 
mere  hearsay,  and  should  not  be  received  after  the  death  of  a 
man  to  destroy  his  character.  We  might  perhaps  rest  our  case  on 
that  ground  alone.  But  as  the  story  has  been  repeated  a  thousand 
times  from  that  day  to  the  present,  and  is  now  publicly  taught 
in  the  schools  of  Boston  as  true,  it  may  be  well  to  consider 
some  of  the  reasons  which  render  it  wholly  improbable.  In 

1  See  Memorial,  p.  34. 


AND   ITS  RELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  185 

the  first  place,  there  was  no  motive  for  the  act.  The  Dutch 
would  have  been  glad  to  have  had  the  Pilgrims  settle  at  New 
York,  and  had  actually  had  negotiations  with  them  on  the  sub 
ject  before  they  left  Holland.  None  of  the  passengers  of  the 
"  Mayflower  "  ever  intimated  or  suspected  such  a  crime  in  their 
captain,  but  had  full  faith  in  him,  not  only  on  the  voyage,  but 
through  the  first  winter,  and  while  he  was  employed  by  them 
some  years  afterwards.  At  that  important  council,  while  the 
"  Mayflower "  was  in  mid-ocean,  when  the  great  question  was 
to  be  settled  whether  they  should  go  forward  or  return,  it  does 
not  appear  that  the  captain  did  or  said  any  thing  to  dissuade 
them  from  going  forward,  —  a  thing  which  he  would  have  been 
likely  to  have  done,  had  he  then  an  intention  to  defeat  their 
designs.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Bradford's  account  of  this 
event  shows,  that,  while  the  seamen  were  almost  in  a  state  of 
mutiny,  and  the  passengers  in  doubt  what  course  should  be 
pursued,  the  master  did  more  than  any  other  person  to  allay 
their  fears,  and  to  encourage  them  to  proceed.  In  a  fierce  storm, 
he  says, — 

"  One  of  the  main  beams  in  the  mid-ship  was  bowed  and  cracked, 
which  put  them  in  some  fear  that  the  ship  would  not  be  able  to  perform 
the  voyage.  So  some  of  the  chief  of  the  company,  perceiving  the  mariners 
to  fear  the  sufficiency  of  the  ship,  as  appeared  by  their  mutterings,  they 
entered  into  serious  consultation  with  the  master  and  other  officers  of  the 
ship,  to  consider  in  time  of  the  danger,  and  rather  to  return  than  to  cast 
themselves  into  a  desperate  and  inevitable  peril ;  and  truly  there  was 
great  distraction  and  difference  of  opinion  among  the  mariners  themselves. 
Fain  would  they  do  what  could  be  done  for  their  wages  when  being  now 
half  the  seas  over ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  they  were  loath  to  hazard 
their  lives  too  desperately.  But,  on  examining  of  all  opinions,  the  master 
and  others  affirmed  that  they  knew  the  ship  to  be  strong  and  firm  under 
water;  and  for  the  buckling  of  the  main  beam,  there  was  a  great  iron 
screw  the  passengers  brought  out  of  Holland,  which  would  raise  the 
beam  into  his  place ;  the  which  being  done,  the  carpenter  and  master 
affirmed  that,  with  a  post  put  under  it,  set  firm  in  the  lower  deck  and 
otherwise  bound,  he  would  make  it  sufficient ;  and  as  for  the  decks  and 
upper  works,  they  would  caulk  them  as  well  as  they  could ;  and  though, 
with  the  working  of  the  ship,  they  would  not  long  keep  stanch,  yet  there 
would  otherwise  be  no  great  danger,  if  they  did  not  overpress  her  with 
sails."  (Bradford's  Hist.,  p.  75.) 


186  THE   COLONY  OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 

But  there  is  still  stronger  evidence  of  the  innocence  of  the 
captain,  in  Bradford's  account  of  their  approach  to  Cape  Cod. 
He  says,  on  seeing  land,  and  having  ascertained  that  it  was  Cape 
Cod, 

"  we  were  not  a  little  joyful.  After  some  deliberation  had  amongst  them 
selves  and  with  the  master  of  the  ship,  they  tacked  about,  and  resolved  to 
stand  for  the  southward  (the  wind  and  weather  being  fair),  to  find  some 
place  about  the  Hudson's  River  for  their  habitation.  But,  after  they  had 
sailed  the  course  about  half  a  day,  they  fell  amongst  dangerous  shoals  and 
roaring  breakers ;  and  they  were  so  far  entangled  therewith,  as  they  con 
ceived  themselves  in  great  danger;  and  the  wind  shrinking  upon  them 
withal,  they  resolved  to  bear  up  again  for  the  Cape,  and  thought  them 
selves  happy  to  get  out  of  those  dangers  before  night  overtook  them,  as 
by  God's  providence  they  did." 

In  Mourt's  Relation,  which  Dr.  Young  supposes  to  have  been 
the  journal  of  Bradford  and  Winslow,  it  is  said  that,  — 

"  By  the  break  of  day  we  espied  land,  which  we  deemed  to  be  Cape  Cod, 
and  so  afterward  it  proved ;  and  the  appearance  of  it  much  comforted  us, 
especially  seeing  so  goodly  a  land  and  wooded  to  the  brink  of  the  sea.  It 
caused  us  to  rejoice  together,  and  praise  God  that  had  given  us  once  again 
to  see  land,  and  thus  we  made  our  course  south-south-west,  purposing  to 
go  to  a  river  ten  leagues  to  the  south  of  the  Cape ;  but  at  night,  the 
wind  proving  contrary,  we  put  round  again  for  the  bay  of  Cape  Cod." 

The  captain  and  the  passengers  undoubtedly  all  supposed  that 
the  Hudson  River  was  some  ten  leagues  south  of  Cape  Cod, 
and  by  going  there,  they  would  reach  their  destined  point.  The 
whole  statement  is  perfectly  natural,  and  there  was  not  then 
even  a  complaint  of  a  mistake,  or  a  suggestion  of  one.  But 
very  little  was  then  known  of  the  geography  of  the  country.  It 
was  then,  and  for  years  afterwards,  supposed,  that  New  England 
was  an  island ;  and  it  will  be  recollected  that  the  charter  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,  granted  ten  years  afterwards,  conveyed  all 
the  land  from  sea  to  sea,  without  a  suspicion  that  it  extended 
thousands  of  miles  across  a  continent.  With  their  imperfect 
knowledge  of  our  coast,  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  did  not  reach 
the  wished-for  point.  The  real  cause  for  wonder  is,  that  they 
came  so  near  as  they  did.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  the  track 
of  the  "  Mayflower  "  across  the  ocean.  None  of  the  journals  or 


AND   ITS   RELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  187 

letters  of  the  passengers  give  us  any  intimation  of  it.  All  they 
tell  us  is,  that  they  started  from  Southampton;  had  favorable 
winds  for  several  days;  then  were  overtaken  by  storms,  when 
they  were  compelled  to  beat  about  till,  after  a  voyage  of  sixty- 
five  days,  they  came  in  sight  of  Cape  Cod.  It  has  been  com 
monly  supposed  that  they  had  made  some  mistake,  and  were 
not  in  the  position  they  intended ;  but  if  they  followed  the 
track  of  Smith,  Gosnold,  and  other  navigators  who  had,  during 
the  twenty  years  previous,  visited  the  New-England  coasts,  as 
they  probably  did,  by  taking  the  northern  route,  then  they  were 
pursuing  a  direct  course  to  the  Hudson  River;  and  a  modern 
navigator,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  our  coast,  might  with  great 
propriety  follow  the  same  track,  and  go  to  New  York  through 
the  Vineyard  and  Long  Island  Sounds.  These  statements  of 
Bradford  wholly  rebut  all  suggestion  of  fraud  or  mistake  on  the 
part  of  the  captain,  and  show  us  the  real  cause  of  cutting  short 
their  voyage,  and  landing  at  Cape  Cod,  instead  of  going  to 
the  Hudson  River.  They  had  been  at  sea  sixty-five  days ;  and 
when  they  saw  Cape  Cod,  "  they  rejoiced  to  see  so  goodly  a 
land."  It  was  then  the  nineteenth  of  November,  according  to 
our  present  style.  They  were  wholly  unacquainted  with  the 
navigation  of  our  coasts,  and  they  fell  in  with  "  dangerous  shoals 
and  roaring  breakers,"  by  which  they  conceived  themselves  in 
great  danger.  It  was  these  several  causes  united,  that  induced 
the  passengers,  and  not  the  master,  to  turn  about,  and  seek 
safety  in  the  harbor  of  Provincetown ;  and  they  then  regarded  their 
ability  to  do  so  as  a  special  favor  of  that  Providence  which  had 
brought  them  safely  across  the  ocean.  This  movement  was  not 
the  result  of  any  premeditated  scheme,  but  sprang  from  sudden, 
unexpected,  and  overwhelming  necessity.  And  who  can  now 
doubt  that,  under  the  circumstances,  they  acted  wisely  ?  and  what 
folly  and  injustice  to  attribute  an  act  to  the  machinations  of  the 
Dutch,  or  the  fraud  of  the  master,  which  can  be  fully  and  satis 
factorily  accounted  for  by  the  storms  of  winter,  the  dangerous 
shoals,  the  unknown  coast,  and  the  longing  to  leave  the  crowded 
vessel  after  so  long  a  voyage !  Thus  much  is  due  to  the  man 
whose  name  has  been  tarnished,  and  whose  character  has  been 
most  unjustly  injured.  It  is  due  to  the  heroic  commander  of 
that  frail  bark,  freighted  as  it  was  with  the  founders  of  an 


188  THE  COLONY  OF  NEW  PLYMOUTH 

empire,  to  say  that  he  acted  his  part  most  manfully,  and  that 
during  the  whole  of  that  perilous  voyage  he  did  every  thing 
which  skill,  care,  and  industry  could  do.  In  justice,  there  should 
be  neither  spot  nor  blemish  upon  his  fame ;  but  to  him  as  well 
as  to  his  passengers  the  world  owes  a  deep  and  lasting  debt  of 
gratitude. 

The  colony  of  Plymouth,  now  happily  incorporated  into  and 
made  a  part  of  our  Commonwealth,  has  a  history  of  its  own, 
and  it  is  a  history  that  will  never  be  forgotten.  As  a  civil 
magistrate,  Bradford,  the  father  of  the  colony,  and  for  twenty- 
one  years  its  governor,  would  by  his  sound  good  sense  and 
elevated  patriotism  have  done  honor  to  any  age.  To  his  wisdom 
and  discretion,  the  colony  owed  much  of  its  prosperity,  and 
undoubtedly  its  prolonged  political  existence.  Of  the  services 
of  Brewster  one  can  hardly  make  too  high  an  estimate.  For 
twenty-four  years  he  was  the  spiritual  father  and  guide  of  the 
colony.  Of  the  intrepid  and  courageous  Standish,  —  the  leader 
in  all  military  enterprises,  whether  against  the  Indians,  the  fol 
lowers  of  Morton  at  Merry  Mount,  or  their  Dutch  neighbors,  — 
it  was  as  true  of  him  as  of  the  Trojan,  that  success  was  never  to 
be  despaired  of  when  he  led  the  way.  So  the  Winslows,  Aller- 
ton,  Alden,  Hatherly,  Prince,  Rowland,  and  Hinckley,  were  all 
good  men  and  true,  and  their  names  are  enrolled  in  letters  of  light 
in  the  history  of  the  remarkable  events  which  created  this  colony, 
and  enabled  it  to  do  so  much  for  the  good  of  mankind. 

Its  duration  was  short.  One  or  two  of  the  passengers  of  the 
"  Mayflower "  may  have  survived  it.  Never  was  there  a  more 
successful  experiment  of  popular  government  than  it  exhibited. 
During  the  whole  seventy-one  years  there  were  but  six  governors, 
two  of  whom  continued  in  office  thirty-nine  years.  In  their 
intercourse  with  the  Indians,  they  present  the  same  bright  ex 
ample  of  humanity  and  justice  as  in  all  their  public  acts.  Not 
a  foot  of  soil  was  taken  from  them  without  their  consent,  nor 
without  the  payment  of  an  equivalent.  The  treaty  with  Massa- 
soit  was  most  scrupulously  observed  for  half  a  century;  and 
it  was  not  their  fault,  nor  that  of  that  faithful  sachem,  that  it 
was  at  last  violated. 

The  Pilgrims  belonged  to  that  class  of  men  of  whom  it  has 
been  said,  that  "  God  sifted  a  whole  nation  that  he  might  send 


AND   ITS   RELATIONS   TO   MASSACHUSETTS.  189 

choice  grain  into  the  wilderness  ; "  and  their  bright  example  will 
give  new  courage  to  the  oppressed  everywhere,  and  inspire  in 
them  new  hope.  Nor  will  the  lustre  of  their  fame  diminish  as 
time  passes  on,  but  will  continue  to  grow  brighter  and  brighter ; 
and  we  may  reasonably  hope  and  expect,  that  the  future  genera 
tions  which  shall  fill  our  continent,  will  regard  the  Fathers  of  this 
little  colony  as  the  founders  of  the  free  institutions  which  it  will 
be  their  pride  and  joy  to  sustain  and  extend. 


NOTE. 

Since  preparing  the  above,  I  have  been  able  to  examine  the  "  Notes  "  of  Sir  Joseph 
Williamson,  Under-Secretary  of  State,  copied  from  the  State  Paper  Office  in  Eng 
land,  at  the  request  of  the  President  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  and 
soon  to  be  published  in  the  Proceedings  of  that  Society.  They  purport  to  have  been 
written  about  1663,  just  before  the  fitting  out  of  the  expedition  against  New  Nether- 
land,  which  led  to  its  conquest.  These  Notes  were  evidently  prepared  as  a  justifi 
cation  of  the  English  government  in  asserting  their  claim  to  the  territory  occupied 
by  the  Dutch  ;  and  take  the  ground  that  the  Dutch  claim  was  fraudulent  from  the 
beginning.  In  reference  to  the  Pilgrims,  they  allege  that  they  "  hyred  a  ship  at 
Tarnere  in  Zealand  of  500  tunns  to  transport  themselves,  beinge  the  number  of  460 
persons  to  Hudson's  river  aforsaid.  But  the  Dutch  which  transported  the  said 
English,  brake  faith  with  them  most  perfidiouslye,  landing  them,  contrary  to  the 
agreement  at  their  shipping,  140  leagues  from  the  place  N.E.  in  a  barren  country, 
since  called  Plymouth  Colonie  in  New  England."  —  This  is  undoubtedly  the  same 
story  which  Morton,  six  years  after,  published  in  another  form  in  his  Memorial ; 
and  his  "  late  and  certain  intelligence  "  was  probably  derived  from  reports  which  the 
conquerors  of  New  Netherland  industriously  circulated,  with  less  regard  to  truth 
than  as  a  justification  of  their  acts.  Morton  may  have  received  this  intelligence  from 
Plymouth  men  who  had  removed  to  Manhattan,  among  whom  were  Isaac  Allerton 
and  Thomas  Willett.  The  whole  statement  is  an  utter  perversion  of  the  truth,  and 
shows  very  plainly  how,  after  a  lapse  of  more  than  forty  years,  the  false  charge 
against  the  captain  of  the  "  Mayflower "  originated. 


SLAVERY 

AS  IT  ONCE  PREVAILED  IN  MASSACHUSETTS, 


BY    EMORY    WASHBURN. 


SLAVERY 

AS  IT  ONCE  PREVAILED   IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 


r  I  ^HE  subject  of  this  evening's  lecture  is,  Slavery  as  it  once 
•*-  prevailed  in  Massachusetts.  The  inquiry  will  involve  how 
far  it  was  legalized  here  as  an  institution,  and  to  what  extent 
the  people  of  the  Commonwealth  were  responsible  for  its  intro 
duction  and  its  continuance.  As  a  thing  of  the  past,  its  history 
is  no  otherwise  interesting  than  as  it  is  connected  with  the 
social  and  political  condition  of  the  colony  and  province,  and  as 
it  awakens  the  inquiry  how  far  the  founders  of  the  Common 
wealth  are  obnoxious  to  blame  for  having  tolerated  it  among 
them.  To  do  justice  to  either  of  these,  requires  a  further 
inquiry  into  the  social  and  political  condition  of  the  world  itself 
when  the  colony  was  planted.  It  would  be  difficult,  without 
such  a  reference,  to  explain  why  and  by  what  means  an  institu 
tion  so  hostile  to  every  principle  of  human  freedom  should  have 
been  sustained  in  a  colony  of  Christian  menr  whose  object  in 
coming  here  was  to  escape  from  oppression,  and  to  found  a 
Christian  commonwealth.  The  facts  of  history,  however,  seem 
to  establish  this  conclusion,  that  slavery  never  was  in  harmony 
with  the  public  sentiment  of  the  colony.  It  was  sustained  only 
by  force  of  the  policy  and  laws  of  the  mother  country,  and  was 
abolished  by  the  people  by  the  very  first  clause  in  the  organic 
law  of  the  State.  One  fact  stands  out  on  the  very  threshold  of 
such  an  investigation  ;  and  that  is,  that  history  does  not  go  back 
to  a  time  when  slavery  was  not  sustained  by  civil  society  and 
enforced  by  law.  No  matter  what  may  have  been  the  form  of 
its  government  or  the  character  of  its  religious  faith, —  Pagan, 
Jewish,  Hindoo,  Moslem, or  Christian,  —  every  state,  kingdom,  and 

13 


194          SLAVERY    AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

empire  of  which  we  have  any  account,  has  at  some  time  cher 
ished  slavery  as  a  social  element.  Nay,  more :  it  has,  in  all  these, 
been  the  basis  on  which  rights  and  obligations  have  rested,  which 
were  in  utter  antagonism  with  that  simple  but  sublime  concep 
tion  of  revelation  which  regards  mankind  as  brothers,  the  children 
of  a  common  parent,  and  endowed  with  a  common  heritage  of 
life  and  immortality. 

An  investigation,  such  as  is  here  contemplated,  might  help  to 
disabuse  the  Commonwealth  of  the  reproach  that  many  have 
been  ready  to  cast  upon  her,  by  holding  up  to  view,  in  the  light 
of  the  present  age,  the  events  which  characterized  her  history 
two  centuries  ago.  Facts  may  often  be  so  colored  and  arranged 
as  to  leave  as  false  an  impression  upon  the  mind  as  if  the 
picture  had  been  false  in  all  its  parts.  The  existence  of  slavery 
in  Massachusetts  is,  in  itself,  an  historical  problem  which  the 
association  with  which  we  are  connected  owes  to  itself  to 
attempt  to  solve  by  applying  the  test  of  fair  criticism  and 
investigation.  It  is  for  such  an  effort,  that  an  appeal  is  now 
made  to  your  indulgence. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed,  however,  that,  to  do  this,  we  are  to 
assume  that  slavery  ever  was  a  wise,  a  Christian,  or  a  humane 
institution.  Nor  have  we  any  occasion  to  arrogate  perfection 
for  the  Fathers  of  Massachusetts.  They  were  men,  and,  as 
such,  had  their  weaknesses  and  their  errors,  as  they  had  their 
virtues  and  their  merits.  They  walked  in  the  light  of  such 
moral  and  social  science  as  they  had,  and  it  would  be  as  obvi 
ously  unjust  to  try  them  by  the  test  of  modern  experience,  as  it 
would  have  been  to  condemn  the  philosophy  of  the  days  of 
Pericles,  because  it  did  not  come  up  to  the  standard  of  the  Ser 
mon  on  the  Mount. 

A  large  proportion  of  the  early  colonists  had  come  from  the 
sturdy,  strong-minded,  middling  classes  of  England.  They  had 
been  trained  in  the  school  of  Puritanism  anol  the  sharp  contests 
of  religious  persecution,  to  think  for  themselves,  and  to  judge  of 
men  rather  by  the  intrinsic  qualities  which  they  exhibited  than 
by  the  accident  of  birth.  A  man  with  them  was  a  living  soul, 
rather  than  a  thing  to  wear  the  decorations  of  royal  favor.  They 
had  grown  up  in  those  habits  of  thought  which  were  then  rife, 
which  regarded  the  precepts  of  the  Bible  above  the  dogmas  of 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.          195 

political  belief.  And  the  laws  of  Moses  had  for  them  a  higher 
sanction  than  any  code  of  mere  human  legislation.  Another 
circumstance  connected  with  the  period  in  which  they  lived 
ought  to  be  constantly  kept  in  mind,  when  undertaking  to 
judge  of  them  as  the  founders  of  a  colony  ;  and  that  is,  the  con 
dition  of  the  law  of  nations  as  it  was  then  understood  compared 
with  the  science  as  it  is  now  practised  and  interpreted.  It  was 
still  in  its  infancy.  Customs,  both  in  the  prosecution  of  war 
and  the  treatment  by  one  nation  of  the  citiz?ns  of  another, 
though  utterly  discarded  in  our  day  by  every  civilized  state,  were 
not  only  tolerated,  but  were  recognized  as  a  part  of  the  code  of 
Christian  morality  in  the  intercourse  of  nations.  Grotius,  who, 
more  than  any  other  writer,  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of 
that  system  of  international  law  which  is  now  in  force,  and 
which  changed  the  whole  policy  of  civilized  war,  had  published 
his  great  work  on  War  and  Peace,  in  Latin,  only  five  years 
before  the  settlement  of  Boston.  And  the  peace  of  Westphalia, 
which  is  regarded  by  many  as  the  event  from  which  the  modern 
science  of  international  law  should  date,  was  concluded  eighteen 
years  after  the  planting  of  the  colony.1 

Not  only  was  Slavery  then  prevailing  in  England,  and  the 
trade  in  slaves  held  to  be  an  established  branch  of  commerce, 
but  this  had  been  true  of  every  nation  of  whose  affairs  we  have 
any  certain  knowledge.  The  Jews  had  their  slaves,  the  Greeks 
theirs,  and  the  same  was  true  of  the  Romans  and  the  Germans. 

If  we  attempt  to  trace  this  custom,  which  had  become  so 
universal,  to  its  origin  or  source,  we  find  the  most  prolific  of  all 
to  have  been  the  incessant  wars  in  which  the  nations  of  the  old 
world  were  engaged.  By  the  notion  that  long  prevailed,  pris 
oners  taken  captive  in  such  wars  were  at  the  mercy  of  their 
captors,  either  to  take  their  lives  or  sell  them  into  bondage. 
And  when  this  right  of  election  on  the  part  of  captors  was 
taken  away,  and  the  selling  of  captives  into  slavery  superseded 
the  right  of  taking  their  lives,  it  was  regarded  as  a  decided 
advance  in  the  science  of  international  law.  The  result  was, 
that  in  some  of  the  ancient  states  the  slaves  multiplied  to  an 
almost  incredible  extent.  In  Rome,  in  the  time  of  the  empire, 
single  individuals,  we  are  told,  held  from  ten  to  twenty  thousand 

1  Wheat.  55,  69 


196          SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

of  these  at  a  time.  We  are  told,  too,  that  the  custom  of  ran 
soming  prisoners  of  war  did  not  originate  till  after  the  thirteenth 
century.  And  the  present  custom  of  exchanging  prisoners  was 
not  known  until  after  the  sixteenth  century.1  Not  only  were 
prisoners  of  war  thus  early  sold  into  bondage  as  slaves,  but  the 
right  to  do  this  was  recognized  as  still  existing  by  Grotius, 
Puffendorf,  and  Bynkershoek,  the  accredited  oracles  of  the  law 
of  nations,  long  after  Massachusetts  was  settled.2 

And  the  circumstance  which  will  hereafter  be  referred  to  again, 
may  be  mentioned  in  this  connection,  of  the  disposition  by  the 
English  of  their  Scotch  prisoners  taken  at  the  battle  of  Dun- 
bar,  a  portion  of  whom  were  sent  to  the  Massachusetts  colony 
for  sale,  and  sold  as  late  as  1650.  The  language  of  C.  J. 
Marshall,  upon  this  subject,  is  this,  — 

"  From  the  earliest  times  war  has  existed,  and  war  confers  rights  in 
which  all  have  acquiesced.  Among  the  most  enlightened  nations  of  anti 
quity,  one  of  these  was  that  the  victor  might  enslave  the  vanquished. 
This,  which  was  the  usage  of  all,  could  not  be  pronounced  repugnant  to 
the  law  of  nations,  which  is  certainly  to  be  tried  by  the  test  of  general 
usage."  (10  Wheat.  R.  120.) 

And  as  another  illustration  of  the  lax  state  of  international 
law,  we  are  told  that,  as  late  as  the  time  of  Cardinal  Richelieu, 
one  nation  might  arrest  and  imprison  the  citizens  of  another 
who  should  come  into  a  country  without  a  safe  conduct  from  its 
government.  And  Richelieu  died  thirteen  years  after  the  settle 
ment  of  the  Massachusetts  colony.  In  this  connection,  too,  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  enslaving  of  negroes  in  Africa 
was  itself  based  upon  the  right  of  making  slaves  of  captives 
taken  in  war.3  And  we  have  the  authority  of  C.  J.  Marshall,  in 
1825,  that - 

"  Throughout  the  whole  extent  of  that  immense  continent,  so  far  as  we 
know  its  history,  it  is  still  the  law  of  nations  that  prisoners  are  slaves." 
(10  Wheat.  R.  121.) 

Though  this  was  much  the  most  prolific  source  of  slavery, 
there  were  others  recognized  by  the  laws  of  different  nations  as 
well  as  by  Grotius  and  Puffendorf;  and  one  of  these  in  use 
among  the  Jews  was  the  selling  of  himself  by  one  to  another  as 

l  1  Kent,  15.  2  20  How.  St.  Tr.  28.  3  Tayl.  Civ.  L.  414. 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         197 

a  slave.1  Another  ground  upon  which  men  were  reduced  to 
slavery  was  by  the  way  of  punishment  for  crimes.  This  pre 
vailed  also  among  the  Jews,  especially  in  case  of  theft.  If  the 
thief  was  unable  to  make  recompense  to  the  injured  party,  he 
might  be  sold.2 

One  of  the  incidents  of  slavery  which  ought  to  be  kept  in 
mind  was,  that  the  child  of  a  slave  was  itself  a  slave.  By  the 
Roman  civil  law  the  status  of  the  child  as  to  being  free  or  other 
wise  followed  that  of  its  mother.  If  she  was  a  slave,  her  child 
was  one  also. 

By  the  law  of  slavery,  when  a  person  became  a  slave  in  either 
of  these  modes,  he  became  changed  into  a  thing  of  property,  to 
be  used  or  sold  at  the  beck  of  a  master.  Among  the  Romans, 
he  might  be  cut  up  to  feed  the  fish  in  his  master's  ponds ;  and 
even  in  the  so-called  Christian  States,  the  law  lent  but  the  feeblest 
protection  to  a  class  so  theoretically  brutalized  and  debased. 

But  here,  again,  there  grew  up,  in  process  of  time,  a  distinc 
tion  in  favor  of  Christians,  which  ought  not  to  be  overlooked, 
when  treating  of  this  subject  historically. 

The  notion  began  to  be  entertained  at  a  pretty  early  period, 
that  it  was  hardly  becoming  for  one  Christian  to  make  another 
of  his  own  faith  a  slave,  merely  because  he  had  taken  him  cap 
tive  in  war ;  and  it  came  in  time  to  be  a  grave  question  in  the 
English  Courts,  whether  one  could  be  held  as  a  slave  after  he 
had  been  baptized:  but  for  pagans  and  infidels  no  such  scruple 
was  entertained ;  and  one  of  the  salvos  to  the  public  conscience 
for  engaging  in  the  African  slave  trade  was,  that  it  was  a  means 
of  converting  infidels  to  Christianity.  It  is  surprising,  at  this 
day,  to  know  with  what  gravity  such  nonsense  was  listened  to 
in  the  English  courts.  In  1677,  nearly  fifty  years  after  our 
ancestors  came  to  Massachusetts,  the  Court  of  King's  Bench 
solemnly  adjudged,  "  that  negroes  being  usually  bought  and  sold 
among  merchants  as  merchandise,  and  being  Infidels"  there 
might  be  a  property  in  them.3  And  seventeen  years  later,  in 
1694,  the  same  Court  held  that  "  trover  will  lie  for  a  negro  boy, 
for  they  are  heathen,  and  therefore  a  man  may  have  property  in 
them ;  and  the  Court,  without  averment  made,  will  take  notice 

1  Jahn  Antiq.  77,  2  How.  St.  T.  28  n.          2  jaim  Sup.,  20  How.  St.  T.  30. 
3  Lev.  R.  201. 


198         SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

that  they  are  heathen."  l  In  other  words,  the  law  would  pre 
sume  a  black  man  to  be  a  heathen,  until  he  could  show  to  the 
contrary. 

Negro  slavery,  moreover,  which  had  been  introduced  by  Spain 
into  her  colonies  in  1508,  became  domesticated  in  England  in  1553, 
when  twenty-four  slaves  were  imported  directly  from  Africa. 
And  in  1562  the  slave-trade  was  inaugurated  by  Sir  John  Haw 
kins,  who,  for  the  atrocities  which  he  committed  in  its  prosecu 
tion,  was  knighted  by  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  and  it  became  from  that 
day  a  regular  and  recognized  branch  of  English  Commerce. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  state  of  public  law,  and  such  the  con 
dition  of  public  sentiment  among  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe 
upon  the  subject  of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade,  when  Winthrop 
and  his  colony  set  sail  for  America,  bringing  with  them  the  royal 
charter,  under  which  a  settlement  had  already  been  begun  at 
Salem. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  individual  motives  of  the  colo 
nists  in  planting  themselves  on  these  shores,  their  corporate 
powers  were  limited  by  the  terms  of  their  charter,  which  were 
rather  those  of  a  trading  company  than  the  organic  law  of  a 
State.  They  might  make  such  rules  and  regulations  as  would  be 
necessary  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the  corporation,  and  main 
tain  order  and  good  government  in  the  colony.  But  they  were, 
in  no  measure,  absolved  from  their  allegiance  as  citizens,  to  the 
crown,  or  from  the  obligations  they  were  under,  as  subjects,  to 
the  government  at  home ;  and  the  charter  itself  forbade  them 
to  make  any  laws  or  ordinances  "  contrary  or  repugnant  to  the 
laws  and  statutes  "  of  the  realm  of  England.  And  we  are  told 
by  Judge  Story  that  "  the  commercial  intercourse  of  the  colonies 
was  regulated  by  the  general  laws  of  the  British  empire,  and 
could  not  be  restrained  or  obstructed  by  colonial  legislation."2 
In  nothing  was  the  policy  which  this  provision  was  meant  to 
guard  more  persistently  adhered  to  by  the  home  government, 
than  in  that  which  had  been  inaugurated  in  1562  in  respect  to 
the  trade  in  slaves,  and  was  subsequently  continued  for  more 
than  an  hundred  years  after  New  England  was  colonized.  It 
was  regarded  as  an  object  of  the  first  importance  to  the  English 
government  to  acquire  and  maintain  a  command  of  this  trade ; 
l  1  Kayra.  R.  147.  2  1  Const.  §  178. 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED    IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         199 

and  to  that  end,  not  only  were  the  English  colonies  rigidly  kept 
open  as  a  market  for  this  commerce,  but  efforts  were  made  and 
treaties  entered  into,  with  a  view  of  obtaining  a  monopoly  of  the 
traffic.  Thus  in  1713,  by  means  of  the  "  Assiento  Treaty,"  so 
called,  England  obtained  the  exclusive  right  of  supplying  the 
Spanish  islands  and  provinces  in  America  with  four  thou 
sand  eight  hundred  negroes  annually,  for  the  term  of  thirty 
years.1 

And  that  such  was  the  purpose  of  the  English  government  in 
respect  to  its  American  colonies,  is  illustrated  in  history,  as  well 
as  conceded  by  the  language  of  the  highest  judicial  tribunals  of 
that  country.2 

It  was  under  circumstances  like  these,  that  the  colony  of  Mas 
sachusetts  Bay  was  planted  and  began  its  administration.  At 
first,  its  affairs  were  carried  on  as  a  pure  Democracy ;  and,  after 
a  few  years,  through  delegates  chosen  for  that  purpose  by  the 
freemen  in  their  several  towns.  In  either  form,  therefore,  what 
ever  laws  they  did  make  are  to  be  regarded  as  a  reflex  of  the 
average  sentiment  and  opinion  of  the  freemen  of  the  colony. 
So  far  as  negro  slavery  was  concerned,  their  power  to  act  at  all 
was  exceedingly  circumscribed.  They  could  prohibit  neither  the 
importation  nor  the  sale  of  slaves  without  clashing  at  once  with 
the  interests  and  wishes  of  government  at  home.  Nothing 
seems  to  have  been  left  open  to  them  in  respect  to  it,  but  simply 
to  deal  with  all  such  as,  by  residence,  were  subject  to  their  laws, 
independent  of  a  prior  jurisdiction,  and  to  regulate  the  status 
of  the  children  of  slaves  born  in  the  colonies.  This  might  be  done 
without  interfering,  in  terms,  with  what  had  once  been  the  sub 
ject  of  sale  or  traffic,  under  the  English  laws  of  importation  and 
trade.  And,  if  denying  to  the  owner  of  the  parent  the  right  to 
hold  the  child  as  a  slave,  was  violating  the  spirit  of  the  law 
under  which  the  parent  himself  was  held,  it  would  go  to  show 
that  the  colonists  were  ready  to  break  away  from  every  thing 
but  the  letter  of  the  law  in  favor  of  freedom.  Laying  aside  then, 
for  the  present,  so  much  as  relates  to  the  slavery  of  the  African 
race,  it  might  still  exist  in  respect  to  such  captives  as  were 
taken  in  war,  such  persons  as  sold  themselves,  and  such  as 
were  reduced  to  slavery  as  a  punishment  for  crime.  It  will  be 
i  Wheat.  56.  2  2  Hagg.  Rep.  106. 


200  SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

necessary  therefore  to  consider  how  far  the  laws  of  the  colony 
authorized  or  tolerated  either  of  these  modes. 

Unfortunately,  for  a  full  and  precise  understanding  of  the 
subject  in  all  its  possible  bearings,  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
to  trace  the  course  of  legislation  in  the  colony  during  the  first 
ten  years  of  its  history.  Many  of  its  laws  during  this  period 
are  still  preserved ;  but  none  of  them  were  printed  until  1048. 
If  all  had  been  preserved,  it  is  believed,  that,  like  some  of  those 
extant,  they  would  be  found  to  correspond,  in  many  respects, 
with  the  provisions  of  the  Levitical  Code.  This,  however, 
we  do  know  historically,  that  the  freemen  of  the  colony,  as 
early  as  1635,  began  to  be  restive,  under  the  idea  that  the 
magistrates  were  clothed  with  too  much  discretionary  power; 
and  that  a  body  of  laws  ought  to  be  established  by  which  the 
rights  and  duties  of  the  citizen  should  be  ascertained,  and 
remedies  provided  for  both  public  and  private  wrongs.  The 
General  Court,  though  somewhat  reluctantly,  came  at  last  into 
the  measure  so  far  as  to  raise  a  committee  to  prepare  a  draft 
of  such  laws  as  should  be  agreeable  to  the  word  of  God,  and  be 
the  fundamentals  of  a  Commonwealth. 

Every  thing,  however,  was  done  with  great  deliberation ;  and 
one  reason  for  this,  as  we  are  told,  was,  that  they  might  not  pass 
any  law  which  should  transcend  the  power  given  them  by  the 
charter,  by  being  repugnant  to  those  of  the  mother  country.1 
It  was,  besides,  deemed  desirable  that  the  proposed  body  of 
laws  should  embrace,  as  far  as  possible,  the  prevailing  sentiments 
and  opinions  of  the  freemen  of  the  colony.  And,  to  that  end, 
an  order  was  passed  in  1638,  calling  upon  them  to  come  together 
in  their  respective  towns,  and  prepare  a  statement  of  the  heads 
of  such  laws  as  they  desired.  After  this  had  been  done,  the 
whole  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ward  of 
Ipswich,  who,  from  having  been  bred  a  lawyer  in  England,  it 
was  supposed  would  be  competent  from  these  to  put  into  form 
a  body  of  laws  to  be  reported  to  the  General  Court.  The  result 
was,  that  a  collection  of  elementary  rules  declaratory  of  the 
duties,  privileges,  and  restrictions  which  the  people  of  the  colony 
were  to  observe,  was  adopted  in  1641,  and  took  the  name  of 
the  "  Body  of  Liberties."  2  In  some  respects  it  answered  to  the 
l  Palf.  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  443.  *  ib.  vol.  ii.  pp.  23-27. 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         201 

English  Magna   Charta,  but  more  nearly  to  the  Declaration  of 
Rights  in  our  Constitution. 

The  object  in  having  been* thus  minute  in  this  detail  was,  to 
reach,  if  possible,  the  true  state  of  public  feeling  in  the  colony, 
upon  the  subject  of  maintaining  slavery,  as  it  existed  at  the  time 
of  the  adoption  of  this  code.  And  it  may  be  added,  that,  after 
all  this  precaution,  provision  was  made  in  the  code  itself,  that 
it  should  be  read  and  revised  at  the  three  next  annual  sessions 
of  the  General  Court.1  It  may,  therefore,  be  assumed,  that 
whatever  found  a  place  in  the  Body  of  Liberties,  was  in  accord 
ance  with  the  judgment  and  wishes  of  the  freemen  of  the 
colony. 

Slavery  was  one  of  these  topics;  and  the  manner  in  which  it 
was  regarded  is  best  judged  of  by  the  language  of  the  code 
itself.  This  Body  of  Liberties  consisted  of  ninety-eight  articles, 
although  generally  spoken  of  as  containing  a  hundred.  In  it 
there  is  no  allusion  to  color,  nor  to  any  distinction  of  race,  or  creed, 
in  the  matter  of  rights  or  privileges.  Unlike  the  English  notion, 
the  Christian  and  the  Heathen,  in  this  respect,  stood  upon  the 
same  level  in  the  eye  of  the  law.  Among  its  criminal  pro 
visions,  "man-stealing"  was  made  a  capital  offence,  resting  for 
its  authority,  upon  the  16th  verse  of  the  21st  chapter  of  Exodus. 
But  it  is  the  ninety-first  article  which  bears  more  immediately 
upon  the  question  under  consideration.  It  is  there  declared 
that  — 

"  There  shall  never  be  any  Bond  Slavery,  Villinage,  or  Captivity 
amongst  us,  unless  it  be  lawful  Captives  taken  in  just  Wars,  and  such 
strangers  as  willingly  sell  themselves,  or  are  sold  to  us.  And  these  shall 
have  all  the  liberties  and  Christian  usages  which  the  law  of  God, 
established  in  Israel  concerning  such  persons,  doth  morally  require.  This 
exempts  none  from  servitude,  who  shall  be  judged  thereto  by  authority." 
(Mass.  Hist.  Col.,  vol.  xxviii.  p.  231.) 

It  contemplates,  it  will  be  perceived,  slavery  as  an  institution 
already  existing.  Its  purpose  is  not  to  introduce  something 
new ;  but,  obviously,  to  limit  and  restrict  it  as  it  exists,  to  three 
classes  of  persons,  and  declares  that,  beyond  these,  "  there  shall 
never  be  any  Bond  Slavery,  Villinage,  or  Captivity  "  in  the  colony. 

1  Palf.  Hist.,  vol.  ii.  p.  25. 


202-       SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

And,  what  is  most  significant  in  the  matter,  the  children  of 
slaves  born  in  the  colony  are  thereby  excluded  from  the  classes 
that  might  be  subjected  to  bond  slavery.  Around  every  human 
being  in  the  colony,  without  regard  to  race  or  creed,  not  em 
braced  in  one  of  these  classes,  it  throws  the  protection  of  the 
law,  and  declares  the  sanction  of  the  death  penalty  for  its 
violation. 

The  framers  of  such  a  law  must  have  had  some  motive  for 
such  a  declaration ;  and  it  is  something  more  than  a  mere  idle 
inquiry,  to  ascertain,  if  we  can,  what  that  motive  was.  A  recent 
writer  upon  this  subject  has  told  the  world,  that  this  article  in 
the  Body  of  Liberties  "  sanctions  the  slave  trade,  and  the  per 
petual  bondage  of  Indians  and  negroes,  their  children  and  their 
children's  children."1  Whether  this  position  is  sought  to  be 
sustained  by  a  fair  review  of  the  general  facts  of  history,  or 
by  the  writer's  own  construction  of  such  as  he  has  seen  fit  to 
select,  can  be  better  judged  of,  by  a  brief  recurrence  to  the 
actual  condition  of  the  world,  at  the  time  of  which  he  is  speak 
ing.  Slavery,  as  we  have  seen,  prevailed  not  only  in  England, 
but  throughout  Christendom  ;  and,  what  is  more,  slavery  existed, 
at  that  very  moment,  in  the  colony  itself,  by  a  previous  importa 
tion  of  slaves  under  the  sanction  of  the  English  government. 
Lord  Stowell,  the  learned  and  illustrious  Chief  Justice  of  the 
English  Court  of  Admiralty,  tells  us  in  an  opinion  given  by  him 
upon  the  subject,  that  — 

"  Slavery  was  a  very  favored  introduction  into  the  colonies :  it  was 
deemed  a  great  source  of  the  mercantile  interest  of  the  country,  and  was, 
on  that  account,  largely  considered  by  the  mother  country  as  a  great  source 
of  its  wealth  and  strength.  Treaties  were  made  on  that  account,  and  the 
colonies  compelled  to  submit  to  those  treaties  by  the  authority  of  this 
country." 

With  slavery,  then,  existing  among  them,  under  the  sanction 
of  a  law  which  they  could  not  repeal  or  gainsay,  if  it  was  in 
coincidence  with  the  wishes  of  the  colonists,  what  occasion  was 
there  for  them  to  act  upon  the  matter  at  all  ?  And  if  it  was  their 
desire  to  perpetuate  it  as  an  institution  in  the  colony,  why  limit 
and  restrict  it  so  that  it  must,  from  the  nature  of  things,  be  certain 

1  Moore,  Hist,  of  Slavery  in  Mass.,  p.  18. 


SLAVERY  AS  IT   ONCE  PREVAILED  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.         203 

to  die  out  in  a  few  years,  unless  kept  alive  by  new  importa 
tions  ? 

These  are  questions  which  one  might  suppose  would  natu 
rally  occur  to  the  mind  of  any  one  undertaking  to  fasten  upon 
this  colony  the  imputation  of  sanctioning  "  perpetual  bondage." 
But  the  evidence  does  not  stop  here.  If  the  colonists  were  actu 
ated  by  the  feelings  and  motives  which  were  entertained  by 
slaveholders  generally,  they  would  have  manifested  this  by  the 
slave  code  under  which  they  were  to  regulate  and  perpetuate  it ; 
and  a  comparison  of  their  legislation  upon  the  subject,  such  as 
it  was,  with  that  of  one  or  two  of  the  other  colonies  may  help 
us  to  form  a  judgment  upon  the  matter.  In  1664,  a  body  of  laws 
"  collected,"  as  the  record  shows,  "  out  of  the  several  laws  now 
in  force  in  his  Majesty's  American  Colonies  and  Plantations," 
and,  of  course,  including  the  Massachusetts  colony,  was  adopted 
for  the  Duke  of  York's  province,  afterwards  a  part  of  New 
York.  Under  the  head  of  "  Bond  Slavery,"  in  that  body  of 
laws,  there  is  a  provision  that  "  no  Christian  shall  be  kept  in 
Bond  Slavery,  Villinage,  or  Captivity,"  except  as  therein  stated, 
excluding  from  this  exemption  agreeably  to  the  prevailing  notion 
of  some  of  the  English  courts,  to  which  reference  has  already 
been  made,  all  such  as  were  infidels  or  heathen.1  A  law  of  Vir 
ginia  of  1669  provides  that  — 

"  If  a  slave  resist  his  master  or  others,  by  his  master's  orders,  correct 
ing  him,  and  by  the  extremity  of  the  correction  should  chance  to  die,  such 
death  should  not  be  counted  a  felony  ;  but  the  master  or  other  person  ap 
pointed  by  his  master  to  punish  him,  be  acquit  from  molestation,  since  it 
could  not  be  presumed  that  prepensive  malice,  which  alone  makes  murder 
a  felony,  should  induce  any  man  to  destroy  his  own  estate."  (1  Tuck. 
Black,  pt.  2,  45.) 

What  a  contrast  is  here  presented  between  a  law  exempting  a 
master,  or  any  one  employed  by  him,  from  punishment  for  whip 
ping  his  slave  to  death,  and  that  of  this  Body  of  Liberties  which 
secures  to  the  most  friendless  heathen  that  had  ever  endured  the 
horrors  of  the  "  middle  passage,"  "  the  liberties  and  Christian 
usages  which  the  law  of  God,  established  in  Israel"  concerning 
those  under  bond  slavery,  morally  required.  And  he  might  by 

i  N.  Y.  Hist.  Col.,  vol.  i.  p.  322. 


204         SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

way  of  safeguard,  even  demand  sureties  of  the  peace  against  a 
violent  and  barbarous  master.1  With  how  much  candor,  then, 
can  a  writer  not  only  charge  the  Body  of  Liberties  with  sanc 
tioning  the  slave-trade  and  the  perpetual  bondage  of  Indians 
and  negroes,  their  children  and  their  children's  children,  but  as 
entitling,  in  his  words,  "  Massachusetts  to  precedence  over  any 
and  all  other  colonies,  in  similar  legislation."2 

The  subject  of  this  Body  of  Liberties  does  not  end  here.  It 
was  not  originally  printed,  and  only  nineteen  copies  were  dis 
tributed,  in  manuscript,  among  the  towns.  An  early  transcript 
of  one  of  these  copies  was  discovered  by  the  late  Hon.  Francis 
C.  Gray,  about  forty  years  since,  and  was  published  by  the  Mas 
sachusetts  Historical  Society  in  1843.  The  first  printed  edition  of 
the  colony  laws  was  published  in  1648.  But  no  copy  of  that  is 
known  to  be  now  extant.  Another  edition  was  printed  in  1660,  of 
which  a  few  copies  remain.  In  that  edition,  the  ninety-first  article 
of  the  original  body  stands  by  itself  as  a  distinct  law.  The  lat 
ter,  however,  omits,  the  words  "  such  strangers  "  which  are  found 
in  the  original.  Instead,  therefore,  of  reading,  that  there  shall  be 
no  bond  slavery,  unless  it  be  lawful  captives,  &c.,  and  such  stran 
gers  as  willingly  sell  themselves,  it  reads,  "  lawful  captives  taken 
in  just  war,  as  willingly  sell  themselves,"  &c.,  obviously  showing 
that  some  words  had  been  accidentally  or  intentionally  omitted ; 
for  there  was  an  inconsistency  in  speaking  of  captives  taken  in 
war  willingly  selling  themselves.  It  required  no  such  sale  to 
make  such  persons  slaves.  We,  accordingly,  find  that  prepara 
tory  to  a  new  edition  of  the  laws  which  was  published  in  1672, 
a  committee  of  the  General  Court  was  raised  to  examine  those 
already  published,  and  report  such  errata  therein  as  required  to  be 
corrected.  Among  the  errata  reported  by  them,  and  passed  upon 
by  the  General  Court,  was  the  mistake  in  the  sentence  above 
quoted.  They  supplied  the  omission  by  the  words,  "  such  as 
shall,"  which  makes  the  clause  read  thus,  "lawful  captives  taken 
in  just  wars,  such  as  shall  willingly  sell  themselves,  or  are  sold  to 
us,"  not  limiting  it  to  strangers  who  sell  themselves,  or  are  sold 
to  us.  But  the  change,  even  if  it  had  any  meaning  or  effect,  left 
the  matter  of  the  children  of  slaves  just  where  it  was  before, 

1  4  Mass.  Rep.  127.  a  Moore  Hist.,  p.  18. 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.          205 

within  the  category  of  those  of  whom  there  should  never  be  any 
bond  slavery. 

And  that  such  is  the  true  construction  of  the  clauses  referred 
to,  has  been  settled  by  the  repeated  adjudications  of  the  highest 
courts  of  Massachusetts,  who.  have,  again  and  again,  held  that 
no  child  born  here  since  1641,  was  ever,  by  law,  a  slave.  Single 
judges  may  have  dropped  language,  at  times,  that  might  be 
capable  of  another  construction ;  but  that  of  the  courts,  when 
speaking  authoritatively  upon  the  point,  has  all  been  one  way, 
that  freedom  was  the  child's  birthright.1 

Starting  with  this  early  action  of  the  freemen  of  the  colony  in 
their  towns  and  by  their  representatives,  we  are  next  to  trace 
the  dealings  of  the  people  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  to  see 
how,  at  any  time,  Massachusetts  became  implicated  in  its  main 
tenance,  and  how  far  they  had  a  right  to  claim  the  commenda 
tion  of  Edmund  Burke  of  having  refused  to  "  deal  any  more 
in  the  inhuman  traffick  of  the  negro  slave,"  the  doing  of  which 
he  pronounced  to  be  "  one  of  the  causes  of  her  quarrel  with 
Great  Britain."  2 

But  before  taking  up  this  in  detail,  it  may  be  well  to  inquire 
how  far  bond  slavery,  arising  from  either  of  the  other  sources, 
existed,  at  any  time,  in  Massachusetts.  No  instance  has  been 
discovered  of  a  sale  by  one  man  of  himself  to  another,  although 
the  power  of  doing  this  was  recognized  in  the  Body  of  Liberties. 
But  of  sales  by  the  way  of  punishment  for  crime,  under  a  sentence 
of  a  court,  there  are  several  instances  recorded.  Thus  we  have 
one  in  Sandwich,  in  1678,  where  three  Indians  were  thus  sold  for 
having  broken  into  a  house  and  stolen.  Being  unable  to  make 
recompense  to  the  owner,  the  Court  authorized  him  to  sell  them.3 
That  a  measure  like  this  would  seem  harsh  in  our  day,  is  not  to 
be  denied.  But  to  judge  of  it  in  its  true  light,  we  should  place, 
ourselves  in  the  condition  in  which  our  Fathers  stood,  and  see 
how  far  circumstances  justified  the  measure.  In  the  first  place, 
they  were  justified  in  this  policy  by  the  respect  they  had  for  the 
Mosaic  law,  from  which  it  was  borrowed.  In  the  next  place, 
the  idea  of  compelling  the  thief  to  make  compensation  to  the 

1  4  Mass.  128  n. ;  16  Mass.  75 ;  13  Mass.  552 ;  10  Cush.  410 ;  Quincy  Rep.  29, 
Gray's  note. 

2  Wheat.  590;  Burke's  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  44.  '  Thach.  Plym.  139. 


206          SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

injured  party  by  his  own  labor  is  an  obvious  dictate  of  remu 
nerative  justice.  The  Hon.  Mr.  Lushington,  of  the  British 
Parliament,  in  his  examination  before  a  committee  of  that  body 
upon  the  subject  of  criminal  law,  in  1835,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry 
involving  the  justice  and  expediency  of  obliging  the  guilty  party 
to  make  restitution  to  the  person  injured,  by  his  labor,  said  : 
"  My  own  opinion  is  this,  that,  in  every  case  where  the  offender 
is  capable  of  indemnifying  the  person  robbed  for  the  loss  he  has 
sustained,  he  ought  to  be  compelled  so  to  do."  1  And  a  still  more 
important  consideration  is,  that  the  science  of  prison  discipline 
and  reform  was,  at  that  time,  literally  unknown.  Hanging, 
drawing  and  quartering;  whipping,  maiming,  and  mutilating  the 
person;  or  shutting  up  offenders  in  dungeons,  in  idleness, in  cold, 
darkness,  and  pestilential  filth,  —  were  some  of  the  punishments 
by  which  the  public  at  that  day  sought  to  be  avenged  upon  those 
who  violated  the  law;  so  that,  even  upon  the  score  of  humanity  as 
well  as  justice,  the  sale  of  a  convict's  services  must  have  had  much 
to  commend  itself  to  the  judgment  of  a  community  situated  as 
were  the  colonists  of  New  England.  But  it  ought  to  be  added, 
that  the  instances  in  which  this  mode  of  punishment  was 
adopted,  appear  to  have  been  few,  and  under  peculiar  circum 
stances. 

Of  captives  taken  in  war  and  sold  into  slavery  by  the  colony, 
the  number  appears  to  have  been  larger,  though  it  is  not  easy 
to  ascertain  in  how  many  instances  it  was  done.  As  a  measure 
of  policy,  it  was  adopted  in  the  case  of  such  as  were  taken  in 
the  early  Indian  wars,  and  was  justified,  so  far  as  such  an  act  of 
severity  could  be  justified,  by  the  dread  and  alarm  in  which  the 
colonists  were  held,  while  contending  with  a  foe  who  recognized 
none  of  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare.  It  was  chiefly  confined 
to  the  remnants  of  the  Pequod  tribe,  and  to  such  as  tvere  taken 
in  the  war  with  King  Philip,  which,  at  one  time,  seemed  to 
threaten  extermination  to  the  white  race.  As  they  could  be 
bound  by  no  treaty,  the  only  measure  of  safety  for  the  colonists 
was  to  hang  or  shoot  their  prisoners,  shut  them  up  and  maintain 
them  in  jails  or  prisons,  or  put  them  in  a  situation  not  to  again 
engage  in  burning  the  towns  and  murdering  the  inhabitants  of 
the  colony.  And  this  could  be  done  effectually  by  selling  them 
i  2d  Rep.  of  Com.  53. 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         207 

into  bondage.  The  first  was  obviously  too  barbarous  to  be 
justified.  The  colonists  were  too  few  and  too  feeble  to  make 
the  second  possible.  And  the  last  alternative  was  resorted  to 
as  their  only  means  of  protection  and  intimidation.  And  this, 
at  least,  may  be  said  in  palliation,  if  not  in  approbation,  of  this 
policy,  —  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  dictated  by  considerations 
of  gain  or  by  mercenary  motives ;  but  rather  as  a  measure  of  self- 
defence,  justified,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  usages  of  Christian 
nations,  and  authorized  by  the  best  writers  upon  international 
law  which  were  then  accessible  to  the  colonists,  whose  works 
they  might  have  read  in  the  light  of  their  blazing  dwellings. 

The  war  with  the  Pequods  was  terminated  in  1637.  Nor 
was  there  any  occasion  to  resort  to  this  severe  alternative  again 
for  the  space  of  forty  years,  when  the  struggle  with  Philip  began  ; 
and,  even  then,  there  were  many  in  the  colony  who  deprecated 
the  principle  upon  which  it  rested.  The  Plymouth  colony, 
immediately  after  Philip's  war,  forbade  any  one  to  buy  the  chil 
dren  "  of  those  our  captive  salvages  that  were  taken  and  be 
came  our  lawful  prisoners  in  our  late  wars  with  the  Indians, 
without  special  leave  of  the  government." 1  And  a  law  of 
Massachusetts,  as  early  as  1712,  prohibited  the  importation  of 
Indian  servants  into  the  colony.2  There  never  was  in  fact  a 
time  when  there  were  not  earnest  advocates  and  devout  laborers 
in  the  colony  for  the  conversion  of  these  sons  of  the  forest  to  the 
faith  and  habits  of  Christian  civilization.  Slavery  was  never 
their  normal  condition,  and  never  reached  beyond  the  individual 
who  was  personally  subject  to  it. 

If  now  we  recur  to  negro  slavery,  it  does  not  appear  when  it 
was  first  introduced  into  the  colony.  One  thing  is  certain,  that 
it  did  not  come  in  with  Winthrop's  Company.  When  Josslyn 
was  here  in  1638,  he  found  Mr.  Maverick  the  owner  of  three 
negro  slaves.  He  probably  acquired  them  from  a  ship  which 
brought  some  slaves  from  the  West  Indies  in  that  year.  And 
this  is  the  first  importation  of  which  we  have  any  account.  But 
Maverick  was  not  properly  a  member  of  Winthrop's  Company. 
He  came  here  before  they  left  England,  and  had  his  establish 
ment,  and  lived  by  himself,  upon  Noddle's  Island.  Nor  was  he 
in  sympathy  with  them  in  church  government  or  religious  senti- 
1  Plym.  Laws,  p.  187.  2  i  Holmes's  Annals,  p.  509. 


208         SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

ment.  Governor  Winthrop  gives  an  account  of  the  admission 
to  the  church,  in  1641,  of  "  a  negro  maid,  servant  to  Mr.  Stough- 
ton,  of  Dorchester."  l 

The  arrival  of  a  Massachusetts  ship  with  two  negroes  on 
board,  whom  the  master  had  brought  from  Africa  for  sale,  in 
1645,  four  years  after  the  adoption  of  the  Body  of  Liberties,  fur 
nished  an  opportunity  to  test  the  sincerity  of  its  framers,  in 
seeking  to  limit  and  restrict  slavery  in  the  colony.  And  it 
derives  an  additional  importance  from  the  circumstance,  gene 
rally  overlooked,  that  it  happened  at  a  time  when  the  colonists 
were  more  nearly  at  liberty  to  act  out  their  own  wishes  in  this 
respect  than  they  had  ever  been  before,  or  were  at  any  time 
afterwards,  by  reason  of  the  civil  war  in  England,  which  had 
then  begun,  and  the  King's  being  in  no  condition  to  look  after 
the  conduct  of  his  foreign  subjects.  Being,  for  the  moment,  in 
no  fear  of  the  home  governm-ent,  they  must  have  acted  as  their 
own  sense  of  right  and  sound  policy  dictated.  Upon  information 
that  these  negroes  had  been  forcibly  seized  and  abducted  from 
the  coast  of  Africa  by  the  captain  of  the  vessel,  the  magistrates 
interposed  to  prevent  their  being  sold.  But  though  the  crime 
of  man-stealing  had  been  committed,  they  found  they  had  no 
cognizance  of  it,  because  it  had  been  done  in  a  foreign  juris 
diction.  They,  however,  went  as  far  towards  reaching  the 
wrong  done  as  they  could;  and  not  only  compelled  the  ship 
master  to  give  up  the  men,  but  sent  them  back  to  Africa,  at 
the  charge  of  the  colony,  with  "  a  letter,"  as  it  is  said,  "  of 
the  indignation  of  the  Court  thereabouts  and  justice  thereof."2 
And  they  made  this,  moreover,  an  occasion,  by  an  act  of  legis 
lation  of  the  General*  Court,  in  1646,  "  to  bear  witness,"  in  the 
language  of  the  act,  "  against  the  heinous  and  crying  sin  of  man- 
stealing^  as  also  to  prescribe  such  timely  redress  for  what  is  past, 
and  such  a  law  for  the  future,  as  may  sufficiently  deter  all 
others  belonging  to  us  to  have  to  do  in  such  vile  and  most 
odious  courses,  justly  abhorred  of  all  good  and  just  men " 
—  an  act  of  legislation  to  say  the  least,  singularly  at  variance 
with  the  assumption,  so  confidently  put  forth,  that  the  framers 
of  the  Body  of  Liberties  (passed  only  four  years  previous  to 

l  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  263.        2  Wint.  Jour.,  vol.  i.  p.  215,  Col  L.  53. 

3  Col.  7,  63. 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         209 

this)  intended  thereby  to  sanction  "  the  slave-trade  and  the  per 
petual  bondage  of  Indians  and  negroes." 

In  a  few  years,  however,  King  Charles  was  again  restored  to 
his  throne,  and  the  legislation  of  the  colony  went  on  under  its 
original  restrictions  and  limitations. 

In  1703,  an  act  was  passed  which  has  subjected  the  General 
Court  to  some  severe  criticism,  though  evidently  because  the 
reasons  and  purposes  of  it  were  misunderstood  by  such  as 
sought  to  cast  censure  upon  their  conduct.  The  substance  of 
this  act  was,  that  no  one  should  emancipate  his  slave,  without 
giving  bond  to  hold  the  town  harmless  from  the  expense  of  his 
support.  And  it  has  been  assumed,  that  this  was  from  a  wish 
to  check  the  facility  of  emancipating  slaves.  So  far,  however, 
is  this  from  being  true,  that,  while  the  act  recognizes  emancipa 
tion  as  being  properly  in  use  for  freeing  slaves,  it  simply  attempts 
to  prevent  the  gross  injustice  and  inhumanity  of  a  master  hold 
ing  his  slave  in  bondage  as  long  as  his  labor  was  profitable,  and 
then  turning  him  over,  as  a  pauper,  to  be  supported  at  the 
public  charge.  And  the  act  itself  holds  such  master  or  mistress 
chargeable  for  the  slave's  support.1 

To  show  that  no  change  in  this  respect  had  taken  place  in  the 
policy  of  the  government,  we  find  that  the  General  Court,  in 
1705,  imposed  a  duty  of  <£4  upon  every  slave  imported  into  the 
province.  And  this  law  was  renewed  in  1728.2  In  1767,  a  bill 
to  restrain  the  importing  of  slaves  passed  the  popular  branch 
of  the  General  Court,  but  failed  in  the  Council.  Nor  would  it 
have  availed,  if  it  had  passed  both  branches,  because  it  would 
have  been  vetoed  by  the  Governor,  acting  under  instructions 
from  the  Crown.  This  was  shown  in  1774,  when  such  a  bill 
did  pass  both  branches  of  the  General  Court,  and  was  thus 
vetoed.3  These  successive  acts  of  legislation  were  a  constantly 
recurring  illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  remark  of  a  modern 
writer  of  standard  authority  upon  the  subject,  that  — 

"  Though  the  condition  of  slavery  in  the  colonies  may  not  have  been 
created  by  the  imperial  legislature,  yet  it  may  be  said  with  truth,  that  the 


i  See  4  Mass.  Kep.  130;  Col.  Law,  745.    2  Felt's  Sal.,  p.  340;  Statis.,  p.  203. 
3  Coffin's  Newbury,  p.  339 ;  Felt's  Statis.,  p.  205 ;  Wheat.  588.    See  also  Declara 
tion  of  Independence. 

14 


210        SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

colonies  were  compelled  to  receive  African  slaves  by  the  home  govern 
ment."  (1  Hurd,  &c.,  208  n.) 

We  have  reached,  in  this  review  of  the  legislation  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  the  point  at  which  the  pressure  of  the  royal  power  was 
taken  from  the  action  of  the  people,  and  the  popular  will  began  to 
have  free  play  upon  this,  as  well  as  other  topics  of  public  interest. 
The  power  of  the  Crown  here  ceased,  for  all  practical  purposes, 
in  October,  1774.  Nor  was  there  any  organized  government  in 
the  Province,  until  the  July  following,  except  such  as  was  fur 
nished  by  what  was  called  the  Provincial  Congress,  composed  of 
a  convention  of  delegates  from  the  several  towns  coming  together 
for  mutual  consultation  and  advice.  Committees  of  Correspond 
ence,  chosen  in  the  towns  and  counties  of  the  Province,  shared 
with  this  Congress  in  giving  a  direction  to  public  affairs.  The 
subject  of  negro  slavery  was  early  agitated  by  these  bodies, 
though  they  had  no  authority  to  act  upon  it.  What  they  did, 
however,  is  an  indication  not  to  be  mistaken,  of  what  the 
feeling  in  the  community  upon  that  subject  was.  The  slaves 
of  Bristol  and  Worcester  Counties  addressed  a  memorial  to  a 
convention  of  these  committees  in  Worcester  in  June,  1775. 
The  response  was  in  these  words, — 

"  We  abhor  the  enslaving  of  any  of  the  human  race,  and  particularly 
the  negroes  of  this  country  ;  and  whenever  there  shall  be  a  door  opened, 
or  an  opportunity  present,  for  any  thing  to  be  done  towards  the  emancipa 
tion  of  the  negroes,  we  will  use  our  influence  and  endeavor  that  such  a 
thing  may  be  brought  about."  (Lincoln,  Hist.  Wor.  110.) 

The  action  of  the  government,  when  reorganized  under  the 
advice  of  the  Continental  Congress,  was  shown  in  September, 
1776,  in  respect  to  several  negroes,  who  had  been  taken  in  an 
English  prize-ship,  and  brought  into  Salem  to  be  sold.  The 
General  Court,  having  learned  these  facts,  put  a  stop  to  the  sale 
at  once.  And  this  was  accompanied  by  a  resolution  on  the  part 
of  the  House, — 

"  That  the  selling  and  enslaving  the  human  species  is  a  direct  violation 
of  the  natural  rights  alike  vested  in  them  by  their  Creator,  and  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  avowed  principles  on  which  this  and  the  other  States 
have  carried  on  their  struggle  for  liberty." 

The  result  was,  that  the  rights  of  prisoners  of  war  were  ex 
tended  to  such  negroes  as  might  thereafter  be  taken  from  the 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         2il 

enemy  during  the  war.  In  other  words,  the  negro,  though  a 
slave  to  an  English  master,  attained  the  attributes  of  a  man 
when  in  a  situation  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  Commonwealth, 
though  the  law  did  not  yet  disturb  the  rights  of  private  property 
in  slaves,  on  the  part  of  the  citizen. 

We  have  thus  far  had  to  do  chiefly  with  the  acts  of  legislation 
in  the  Colony  and  Province,  in  undertaking  to  trace  the  course  of 
public  sentiment,  as  well  as  the  condition  of  slavery,  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Revolution.  But  there  are  other  sources  of  evidence 
than  legislation  upon  those  subjects,  which  ought  not  to  be 
overlooked,  when  undertaking  to  reach  the  truth,  as  it  stands  in 
history.  Unfortunately,  those  sources  are,  at  the  best,  meagre; 
and  the  facts  derived  from  them  are  only  fragmentary.  It  is  to 
be  remembered,  that  the  Colony,  while  it  remained  such,  never 
had  a  newspaper;  and  printing  presses  were  almost  unknown. 
Nor  was  there  any  newspaper  in  the  Province  until  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century.  The  laws  even  were  not  printed  till  1648 ; 
and  not  again  till  1660.  There  are  two  or  three  sources  from 
which  may  be  drawn  conclusions  that  will  serve  to  indicate 
how  slavery  was  regarded  during  the  periods  of  the  colonial 
and  provincial  history.  One  of  these  is  the  number  of  slaves 
who  were  held  here,  at  any  one  time,  as  it  tends  to  show  whether 
the  people  were  eager,  or  otherwise,  to  possess  them ;  for, 
if  they  had  wished  for  them,  the  English  merchants  were  ever 
ready  to  supply  such  a  desirable  demand ;  it  was  a  branch  of 
English  commerce.  Another  is  the  manner  in  which  they  were 
treated  by  their  owners,  as  serving  to  show  whether  the  motive 
in  holding  them  was  wholly  a  selfish  one,  for  the  sake  of 
the  labor  which  might  be  wrung  out  of  them  by  harsh  and 
cruel  treatment ;  and,  lastly,  the  expression  which  remains  of 
individual  and  associate  opinion,  as  it  is  contained  in  letters, 
pamphlets,  and  the  records  of  religious  and  other  associations. 
Nor  should  we  forget,  that,  in  the  discussions  to'  which  the 
question  of  slavery  gave  rise,  there  were  those  in  the  Province 
who  doubted  the  expediency  of  immediate  emancipation ;  and 
that  some  went  so  far  as  to  insist  that  the  trade  itself  had  better 
be  regulated,  than  wholly  suppressed.  And  this  statement  is 
due  to  fairness  in  undertaking  to  give  the  true  measure  of  public 
sentiment  upon  the  subject. 


212         SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

In  respect  to  the  number  of  slaves  living  here  at  any  one  time, 
no  census  seems  to  have  been  taken  of  them  prior  to  1754. 
And  it  is  proper,  in  this  connection,  to  meet  a  suggestion  which 
has  been  industriously  propagated  by  individuals,  that  the  early 
settlers  of  Massachusetts  engaged  in,  and  prosecuted  the  slave- 
trade  as  a  regular  business.  The  writer  already  quoted,  in  the 
work  referred  to,  indulges  in  this  statement:  "  At  the  very  birth 
of  the  foreign  commerce  of  New  England,  the  African  slave- 
trade  became  a  regular  business."  l  The  facts  upon  which  a 
precisely  opposite  conclusion,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  Massachusetts, 
has  been  arrived  at  by  others,  will  enable  one  to  judge  whether 
such  a  sweeping  charge  is  well  founded.  Mr.  Felt  says,  that  the 
first  vessel  that  brought  slaves  to  Massachusetts,  in  1638,  was 
only  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  tons  burthen,  and  was  freighted 
with  cotton  and  tobacco ;  so  that  the  number  of  these  slaves 
was,  probably,  small.2  He  also  refers  to  a  statement  of 
Governor  Bradstreetjn  1680,  who  expressly  declares  that  there 
had  not  been  a  company  of  blacks  or  slaves  brought  into  the 
country  since  the  beginning  of  the  plantation,  except  one  small 
vessel  about  two  years  before  the  time  of  making  this  state 
ment,  which  brought  between  forty  and  fifty  negroes,  mostly 
women  and  children.  And  it  is  also  stated  by  Governor  Brad- 
street,  that  these  were  sold  here  "  for  10,  15,  and  £20  apiece," 
although  they  stood  the  merchant  "in  near  £40  apiece,"3  which 
must  certainly  have  offered  rather  a  poor  encouragement  to 
prosecute  such  a  commerce,  as  "  a  regular  business."  And 
Governor  Bradstreet  adds,  that,  "  now  and  then,  two  or  three 
negroes  were  brought  hither  from  Barbadoes,  and  other  of  his 
majesty's  plantations,  and  sold  here  for  about  £20  apiece;" 
and  he  concludes,  "  that  there  may  be  within  our  government 
about  one  hundred,  or  one  hundred  and  twenty.  "  *  Not  a  very 
extensive  commerce  certainly,  after  having  been  prosecuted  for 
fifty  years,  as  "  a  regular  business"  !  But  the  evidence  does  not 
stop  here.  The  Secretary  of  the  Historical  Society  has  a 
printed  letter,  bearing  date  November,  1690,  addressed  to  a 
member  of  the  then  House  of  Commons,  the  title  of  which  is, 
"  That  the  trade  to  Africa  is  only  manageable  by  an  Incorporated 

i  Moore,  p.  29.  2  Hist.  Salem,  p.  109. 

3  Felt's  Statis.,  p.  586.  *  See  Hist.  Col.,  vol.  xxviii.  p.  337. 


SLAVERY  AS  IT   ONCE  PREVAILED   IN  MASSACHUSETTS.         213 

Company  and  a  joint  stock ;  demonstrated,"  &c.  The  letter 
goes  on  to  show,  that  to  carry  on  the  trade  requires  ample  funds 
and  a  well-regulated  system,  to  make  it  profitable  at  all.  One 
of  its  statements  is  in  these  words :  — 

"  And  as  it  could  not  then  escape  your  observation,  no  more  than  it 
can  now  your  memory,  that  the  trade  of  Africa  was,  about  twenty  years 
ago,  not  only  so  abated,  but  sunk  to  such  a  degree  that  it  became  a  matter 
of  State,  challenging  the  utmost  wisdom  and  care  of  his  then  majesty ; 
and  of  those  of  the  profoundest  prudence  and  of  the  largest  mind,  for  the 
public  good,  who  were,  at  the  time,  in  the  ministry,  how  to  revive  and 
restore  it,  so  as  to  render  it  consistent  with  the  honor  of  the  govern 
ment,  useful  to  the  American  Plantations,  and  of  ample  advantage  to  the 
Nation." 

And  it  adds, — 

'iNor  can  any  body  of  men,  but  an  incorporated  society  acting  by  and 
upon  a  joint  stock,  gain  and  maintain  such  intelligence  as  may,  upon  so 
vast  and  extended  a  coast,  either  give  life  unto  or  procure  an  advantage 
by  trade."  l 

If  now  we  recur  to  the  colonial  statistics,  they  seem  to 
establish  two  facts  in  connection  with  the  circumstances  already 
mentioned:  first,  that  there  was  no  such  demand  or  desire  for 
slaves  on  the  part  of  the  colonists,  as  to  induce  them  to  enter  to 
any  considerable  extent,  into  the  trade  of  supplying  them ;  and, 
second,  that  if,  as  there  appears  to  have  been,  there  was  an 
increase  of  the  traffic  after  the  year  1700,  it  was  probably  in 
consequence  of  the  increased  encouragement  given  to  the  trade, 
by  the  government  at  home,  as  recommended  by  the  letter  referred 
to,  rather  than  of  any  action  of  the  colonists,  or  any  increased  favor 
on  their  part,  for  the  institution  of  slavery.  We  ought  not  to 
forget  another  fact  in  connection  with  the  number  of  slaves,  as 
given  by  Governor  Bradstreet;  that  while,  of  the  latter,  there 
were  only  one  hundred  or  one  hundred  and  twenty,  as  late  as 
1680,  the  number  of  Scots,  who  had  been  captured  by  the 
English,  and  sold  into  the  colony  in  1651,  was  about  two  hundred 
and  seventy-four,  —  all  purchased  in  a  single  year,  which  showed, 

1  Confirmatory  of  this  is  the  statement  of  Governor  Dudley  in  1708.  "  The  African 
Company  of  England  had  not  had  any  factory  or  ship  here.  Some  traders  on  their 
own  account,  a  long  time  since,  have  been  upon  the  Coast  of  Guinea,  and  imported 
slaves."  (Felt's  Statis.,  p.  586.) 


214         SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

in  some  measure,  the  estimate  at  which  our  ancestors  held  the 
trade  in  African  slaves. 

In  1708,  Governor  Dudley  estimates  the  whole  number  in  the 
colony  at  five  hundred  and  fifty ;  two  hundred  having  arrived 
between  1698  and  1707.1  Dr.  Belknap  thinks  they  were  the 
most  numerous  here  about  1745.  And  Mr.  Felt,  upon  careful 
calculation,  computes  their  number  in  1754,  at  four  thousand 
four  hundred  and  eighty-nine.  In  1763,  the  proportion  of  blacks, 
slave  and  free,  to  the  whites  in  the  province,  as  given  by  Dr. 
Belknap,  was  as  one  to  forty-five.2  While,  at  the  same  time,  in 
Virginia,  where  slavery  was  in  favor,  there  were  ten  blacks  to 
eight  whites,  or  one  hundred  thousand  blacks  to  eighty-five 
thousand  whites  in  that  colony. 

Nor  was  this  because  the  colonists  of  Massachusetts  did  not 
wish  for  laborers.  Labor  is  one  of  the  great  necessities  of  every 
new  settlement.  And  we  know,  from  various  sources,  at  what 
cost  and  trouble  they  were  to  procure  it.  One  means  of  doing 
it,  was  by  some  sort  of  contract  with  those  who  sold  their  ser 
vice  to  the  company,  probably  to  pay  for  the  cost  of  their  trans 
portation  into  the  colony.  In  the  Life  and  Letters  of  Governor 
Winthrop,3  it  is  stated,  that  of  the  residents  under  Endicott, 
whom  Governor  Winthrop  found  here  at  his  arrival,  one  hundred 
and  eighty  were  bond  servants  of  the  planters  who  were  to 
follow,  all  of  whom  were  emancipated  by  him,  on  account  of  a 
scarcity  of  provisions  in  the  colony,  although  they  had  cost  them 
from  16  to  £20  each.4 

And  the  reason  why  the  colonists  preferred  white  to  black  ser 
vants  was,  not  so  much  their  profitableness,  as  that  given  by 
Governor  Dudley,  —  they  were  "  serviceable  in  war  presently,  and 
after,  became  planters,"  adding  to  the  productive  population  and 
military  strength  of  the  colony ;  and  Governor  Bradstreet  tells 
us  in  1680,  that  of  the  Scots  who  were  sold  here  in  1651,  most 
of  them  had  married  and  were  then  living,  with  about  half  as 
many  Irish  brought  here,  at  several  times,  as  servants.5  They 

1  Felt's  Statis.,  p.  586. 

2  Felt's  Statis.,  p.  211 ;  Hist.  Col.,  vol.  iv.  pp.  198-199.          »  Vol.  ii.  p.  29. 

4  Felt's  Salem,  p.  42.     This  class  of  servants  are  described  by  Randolph  in  1676, 
as  being  those  "  who  serve  for  years  for  the  charge  of  being  transported  thither  by 
their  masters"  (Felt's  Statis.,  202.) 

5  Felts,  Statis.,  p.  586. 


SLAVERY  AS  IT  ONCE  PREVAILED   IN  MASSACHUSETTS.        215 

seem  to  have  passed  from   servants  to   planters,  and  to   have 
acquired  homes  and  families  of  their  own. 

If,  now,  we  turn  to  the  question  of,  how  such  slaves  as  they 
had  were  treated  by  their  masters,  the  testimony  seems  to  have 
been  uniform  throughout  the  colonial  period.  Dr.  Belknap  made 
a  systematic  business  of  ascertaining  this  point  by  an  extended 
correspondence  with  many  of  the  most  intelligent  men  in  the 
province.  And  among  them  were  John  Adams,  Governor  Sulli 
van,  Dr.  Holyoke,  and  others  of  that  class ;  and  the  testimony  he 
gives  us  is,  that  this  treatment  "  was  far  from  rigorous.  No 
greater  labor  was  exacted  from  them  than  of  white  people." 
"  In  the  country,  they  lived  as  well  as  their  masters,  and  often  sat 
at  the  same  table."  1  A  large  proportion  of  them  were  employed 
in  domestic  service  in  families  in  the  larger  towns.  They  could 
not  have  been  worked  in  gangs,  as  was  the  case  in  the  Southern 
States;  for  their  number  was  so  few,  that,  if  equally  divided 
among  the  families  in  the  province,  not  more  than  one  family  in 
seven  or  eight  could  have  had  a  single  slave ;  and  some  judg 
ment  can  be  formed  upon  this  subject,  from  the  fact  which  many 
still  can  remember,  that  when  the  entire  slave  population  of  the 
State  was  emancipated  by  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  in 
1780,  many  of  them  continued  members  of  their  masters'  families, 
by  preference,  as  long  as  they  lived.  The  record  has  yet  to  be 
found  of  a  slave  woman  ever  being  worked  as  a  "  field-hand " 
in  Massachusetts.  More  than  that,  in  many  towns,  and  I  know 
not  but  in  all,  the  slave,  if  otherwise  qualified,  was  admitted  to 
the  communion  and  fellowship  of  the  church.  For  some  years 
after  1652,  negro  servants  were,  moreover,  enrolled  in  the  militia. 
Nor  is  there  any  thing  in  the  law,  or,  so  far  as  history  tells  us,  in 
usage,  that  excluded  the  children  of  slaves  from  the  privileges 
of  the  free  schools  of  Massachusetts.  Marriages  between  slaves 
were  celebrated  by  clergymen,  and  carried  with  them  the  legal 
incidents  of  such  a  relation.2  That  many  of  the  children  of  slaves 

1  See  also  4  Mass.  Rep.  128. 

2  Col.  L.  746 ;  Quincy  Rep.  30,  Gray's  note.     J.  W.  Thornton,  Esq.,  has  in  his 
possession  the  original  of  a  form  used  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Phillips,  of  Andover,  who 
was  ordained  in  1710,  in  the  marriage  of  slaves,  in  which  he  is  careful  to  remind 
them  that  they  remain  still,  really  and  truly,  as  ever,  their  master's  property.     The 
form  seems  to  have  been  a  special  one  of  his  own,  and  merely  shows  that,  in  1756, 
when  slavery  was  recognized  in  Massachusetts,  there  were  minds  constituted  like 


216         SLAVERY   A3   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

were  brought  up  as  slaves,  and,  when  the  affairs  of  their  mas 
ters'  families  were  settled,  were  inventoried  as  property,  and  dis 
posed  of  as  such,  there  is  probably  no  reason  to  doubt.  Nor  is 
it  difficult  to  imagine  how  such  a  state  of  things  should  more 
or  less  frequently  have  arisen. 

A  remark  of  Judge  Cooley,  of  Michigan,  in  his  recent  work  on 
Constitutional  Limitations,  applies  with  much  force  to  the  sub 
ject  here  referred  to. 

"  A  power,"  says  he,  "  is  frequently  yielded  to,  merely  because  it  is 
claimed  ;  and  it  may  be  exercised  for  a  long  period,  in  violation  of  the  con 
stitutional  prohibition,  without  the  mischief  which  the  Constitution  was 
designed  to  guard  against  appearing,  or  without  any  one  being  sufficiently 
interested  in  the  subject  to  raise  the  question."  (p.  71.) 

In  the  first  place,  nobody  seems  to  have  thought  whether  they 
were  or  were  not  slaves,  until  just  before  the  Revolution.  The 
number,  at  best,  was  too  few  to  excite  much  attention.  There 
was  but  here  and  there  a  lawyer  to  agitate  the  question,  if 
it  had  been  raised;  and  it  was,  obviously,  for  the  policy  of 
the  towns,  as  well  as  a  measure  of  humanity  to  the  child,  to 
have  him  brought  up  in  his  master's  family,  instead  of  being 
separated  from  his  parents,  and  supported  or  bound  out  as 
a  pauper.  Such  children  grew  up,  unquestioning  and  unques 
tioned,  as  slaves  de  facto,  without  being,  in  any  sense,  slaves  de 
jure.  It  was  not,  however,  ordinarily,  for  the  value  they  were 
of  to  their  masters ;  for  we  are  told  by  Dr.  Belknap  and  his  cor 
respondents,  that  they  were  often  given  away  in  childhood.  Nor 
does  the  fact  that  they  were  held  as  slaves,  where  the  question 
as  to  their  being  such  was  never  raised,  militate  with  the  position 
already  stated,  —  that  no  child  was  ever  born  into  lawful  bondage 
in  Massachusetts,  from  the  year  1641  to  the  present  hour.  And 
when,  at  last,  questions  of  this  kind  began  to  be  raised,  juries 
seem  not  to  have  been  slow  in  vindicating  the  freedom  of  the 

some  in  1856,  when  it  had  ceased  to  be  lawful  there,  who  regarded  the  rights  of  the 
master  to  his  human  chattel,  as  more  to  be  respected  than  the  inborn  rights  of  the 
slave  himself  as  a  human  being.  Judge  Sewall,  in  his  diary  in  1700,  speaks  of  a  con 
templated  marriage  between  a  negro  servant-man  of  Mr.  Wait  and  a  negro  servant- 
maid  of  Mrs.  Thair,  and  adds,  "and  Mrs.  Thair  gave  up  the  note  of  publication  to 
Mr.  Wait,  for  him  to  carry  it  to  William  Griggs  Esq.,  town  clerk,  and  to  Williams, 
in  order  to  have  them  published  according  to  law." 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         217 

slave.  All  they  had  wanted  was  an  occasion  to  act.  If  we 
turn  now  to  the  third  source  of  knowledge  as  to  how  slavery  was 
regarded  in  the  colony  and  province,  —  what  was  written  and  pub 
lished  and  done  by  individuals  and  associations  in  respect  to  it, 
—  we  find  a  pamphlet  by  Judge  Sewall,  afterwards  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Superior  Court,  published  in  1700,  aimed  directly  at  the 
unchristian  character  of  slavery  and  the  abominations  of  the 
slave-trade ; l  and,  in  1716,  he  followed  up  this  attack  by  a  strenu 
ous  effort  to  change  the  form  of  valuing  and  taxing  slaves,  and 
to  take  them  out  of  the  list  of  chattels.  In  1702,  the  people  of 
Boston  applied  to  their  representatives  in  the  General  Court 
to  have  an  end  put  to  holding  negroes  as  slaves.  This  may  have 
been  the  moving  cause  of  the  act  of  1705  already  mentioned, 
which  laid  a  duty  upon  all  imported  slaves  ;  and  the  historian  of 
Boston  tells  us,  that,  prior  to  1727,  those  who  were  engaged  in 
the  traffic  in  slaves,  and  had  occasion  to  advertise  their  human 
wares,  often  concealed  their  names,  as  people  do  now,  who 
choose  to  keep  dark  as  to  what  they  think  and  say,  by  referring 
persons  who  wish  for  information  to  "  the  Printer."  2 

The  record  of  how  the  people  of  Massachusetts  stood  in  re 
spect  to  the  institution  of  slavery  among  them  would  be  greatly 
imperfect  if  it  omitted  to  mention  the  part  which  the  Quakers 
of  Nantucket  took  in  the  attempts  made  to  suppress  it.  The 
venerable  Nathaniel  Barney,  now  of  Poughkeepsie,  has  pub 
lished  an  interesting  account  of  their  proceedings,  and  is  in 

1  The  account  given  by  Judge  Sewall,  in  his  diary,  of  the  circumstances  under 
which  this  was  written,  is  as  follows  :  "  Having  been  long  and  much  dissatisfied  with 
ye  trade  of  fetching  Negroes  from  Guinea,  at  last  I  had  a  strong  inclination  to  write 
something  about  it;  but  it  wore  off.     At  last  reading  Bayne  Ephs,  abl  servants  who 
mentions  Blackamores,  I  began  to  be  uneasy  that  I  had  so  long  neglected  doing  any 
thing.     When  I  was  thus  thinking,  in  came  Bro.  Belknap,  to  shew  me  a  petition  he 
intended  to  present  to  ye  Gen1  Court  for  the  freeing  a  negro  and  his  wife  who  were 
unjustly  held  in  Bondage.     And  there  is  a  motion  by  a  Boston  Committee  to  get  a 
law  y*  all  importers  of  negroes  shall  pay  4£  per  head  to  discourage  ye  bringing 
of  yin-    And  Mr.  C.  Mather  resolves  to  publish  a  sheet  to  exhort  masters  to  labor 
yr  conversion,  which  makes  me  hope  that  I  was  called  of  God  to  write  this  apology 
for  them.     Let  his  blessing  accompany  the  same." 

In  a  letter  of  Judge  Sewall,  in  1706,  in  speaking  of  this  pamphlet,  he  says,  "It 
is  no  small  refreshment  to  me  that  I  have  the  learned,  reverend,  and  aged  Mr.  Higgin- 
Bon  for  my  abettor.  By  the  interposition  of  this  breastwork,  I  hope  to  carry  on  and 
manage  this  enterprise  with  safety  and  success."  (Letter-Book,  p.  180.) 

2  Drake's  Hist.,  p.  625. 


218         SLAVERY  AS  IT  ONCE  PREVAILED   IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

possession  of  a  manuscript  copy  of  a  tract  against  the  making 
slaves  of  men,  by  Elihu  Colman,  written  in  1729,  and  pub 
lished  in  1733.  Following  these  as  our  guide,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  this  body  of  Christians  deserve  the  honor  of  being  the 
first  associated  organization  who  made  open  war  upon  slavery 
in  this  country,  or,  so  far  as  I  have  discovered,  in  the  world. 
The  Friends,  at  their  Philadelphia  yearly  meeting  in  1688,  had 
begun  the  discussion  without  taking  any  decided  action  ;  but  the 
Friends  of  Nantucket,  moved  and  aroused  by  the  fervid  eloquence 
of  a  distinguished  preacher  of  that  denomination,  a  daughter  of 
Tristram  Coffin,  and  the  wife  of  Nathaniel  Starbuck,  made  a 
public  protest  and  declaration,  "  that  it  is  not  agreeable  to  the 
truth  for  Friends  to  purchase  slaves  and  hold  them  for  the  term 
of  life."  This  was  in  1716,  and  was  followed  in  1729  by  an 
appeal  from  the  same  body  to  the  Philadelphia  yearly  meeting, 
that- 

"  Inasmuch  as  we  are  restrained  by  the  rule  of  discipline  from  being 
concerned  in  fetching  or  importing  negro  slaves  from  their  own  country, 
whether  it  is  not  as  reasonable  that  we  should  be  restricted  from  buying 
them  when  imported." 

There  is  a  peculiar  significance  in  this  language  from  the  fact, 
stated  by  the  venerable  John  Woolman,  so  kindly  spoken  of  in 
the  writings  of  Charles  Lamb,  that,  when  he  was  in  Newport  in 
1760,  he  was  pained  to  see  slaves  imported  from  Africa  by  a 
member  of  the  society  of  Friends,  then  on  sale  there  by  the 
importer. 

This  movement  by  the  people  of  Nantucket  was  followed  by 
others  of  a  similar  character,  which  showed  how  generally  the 
attention  of  the  public  was  being  aroused  to  the  mischief  and 
absurdity  of  tolerating  such  an  institution  in  the  midst  of  a  peo 
ple  who  professed  a  desire  to  be  free. 

And  this  feeling  continued  to  gain  strength,  as  the  difficulties 
with  the  mother  country  became  more  threatening.  In  1755, 
Salem  applied  to  the  General  Court  to  suppress  slavery.1  Bos 
ton  did  the  same  in  1766,  in  1767,  and,  as  already  stated,  in  1772. 
In  1773,  the  action  of  the  towns  was  more  general  and  decided ; 
and,  without  attempting  to  enumerate  them  all,  it  will  be  enough 

1  Felt's  Salem,  p.  204. 


SLAVERY  AS  IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN  MASSACHUSETTS.         219 

to  mention,  as  representing  different  sections  of  the  Province,  the 
towns  of  Salem,  Leicester,  and  Sandwich,  which,  in  that  year, 
specially  and  pointedly  instructed  their  representatives  to  use 
their  endeavors  to  put  a  stop  to  the  importation  of  slaves.1  The 
subject,  too,  found  its  way  into  the  college ;  and,  at  the  Com 
mencement  at  Harvard  that  year,  there  was  a  public  forensic 
disputation  upon  the  question,  "  Whether  slavery  is  in  accord 
ance  with  the  law  of  nature  ?  " 

Pamphlets  and  newspapers  began,  as  early  as  1765,  to  discuss 
this  question  of  slavery.2  And,  as  the  country  approached  the 
crisis  of  the  Revolution,  masters,  in  many  cases,  voluntarily 
emancipated  their  slaves ;  and  appeals  began  to  be  made  to  the 
Courts,  by  those  held  in  bondage,  to  be  declared  free.  There 
were  two  such  cases  in  Middlesex,  between  1768  and  1770,  in 
which  judgment  was  rendered  in  favor  of  the  parties  suing  for 
freedom ;  and  another  was  decided  in  the  same  way  in  Essex, 
in  1773 :  which  are  referred  to  rather  as  examples,  than  to  indi 
cate  the  number  or  localities  of  these  actions.3 

There  is  a  significant  circumstance  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
Courts  of  Massachusetts,  in  the  fact,  that,  contrary  to  the  uniform 
usage  of  other  States  where  slavery  has  prevailed,  slaves  were 
here  admitted  to  testify  against  white  men,  even  in  capital 
cases.4 

It  has  sometimes  been  asked,  Upon  what  ground,  in  the  cases 
above  referred  to,  the  Courts  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  party 
suing  for  his  freedom  ?  Unfortunately  the  Records  do  not  show 
this.  If  it  was  placed  upon  the  circumstance  of  their  being  born 
in  this  Commonwealth,  as  seems  to  have  been  the  case,  from  the 
language  of  C.  J.  Parsons,5  it  would  be  in  accordance  with  the 
doctrine  afterwards  declared  and  maintained  by  the  Courts.  If 
it  was  because  the  jury  saw  fit,  of  their  own  accord,  to  render 
their  verdict  in  such  a  way  as  to  insure  the  negro  his  freedom, 

1  Felt's  Salem ;  Freem.  Hist.  Barnst. ;  Hist.  Leicester. 

2  Felt's  Statis.,  p.  204.  3  Coffin's  Newb.,  p.  339. 

4  Quincy  Rep.  30,  Gray's  note.  The  following  is  an  extract  of  a  letter  from  Judge 
Sewall,  in  1719,  "to  Addington  Davenport,  Esq.,  going  to  judge  Samuel  Smith,  of 
Sandwich,  for  killing  his  negro."  —  "  The  poorest  boys  and  girls  within  the  province, 
such  as  are  of  the  lowest  condition,  whether  they  be  English  or  Indians  or  Ethiopians, 
they  have  the  same  right  to  religion  and  life  that  the  richest  heirs  have." 

*  4  Mass.  Rep.,  127. 


220         SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE  PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

it  serves,  at  least,  to  show  how  strong  the  sentiment  then  was  in 
the  community  against  the  institution  itself.  We  are  told  by 
John  Adams,  that  "  he  never  knew  a  jury,  by  a  verdict,  to  deter 
mine  a  negro  to  be  a  slave.  They  always  found  him  free/' 
And  he  gives  us  to  understand,  that  the  arguments  addressed  to 
the  Courts  in  favor  of  his  liberty,  were  those  "  arising  from  the 
rights  of  mankind."  1 

Nor  was  the  pulpit  silent.  The  venerable  pastor  of  the  church 
in  Newbury,  as  well  as  the  late  Mr.  Coffin,  the  historian  of  that 
town,  have  given  us  interesting  accounts  of  two  spirited  sermons 
preached  in  that  pulpit,  in  1774,  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Niles,  after 
wards  a  member  of  Congress  from  Vermont,  and  a  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  And,  as  evidence  of  their  pertinency  and  effect, 
we  are  also  told,  that  one  of  his  parishioners,  the  next  morning, 
called  up  the  only  slave  he  had,  and  gave  him  his  freedom  un 
solicited.2 

In  this  connection,  moreover,  a  circumstance  mentioned  by  the 
learned  and  faithful  biographer  of  General  Warren,  ought  not 
to  be  omitted,  inasmuch  as  it  shows  how  freely  the  feeling  against 
the  encroachments  of  the  mother  country  was  identified  with  that 
against  slavery  in  every  form.  In  November,  1772,  the  Com 
mittee  of  Correspondence  of  the  town  of  Boston  submitted  to 
their  constituents  a  statement  of  what  they  deemed  to  be  the 
"  Rights  of  the  Colonies,"  and  a  list  of  the  infringements  of 
these. 

It  was  unanimously  adopted  at  a  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall ; 
and  the  selectmen  of  the  town  were  directed  to  send  copies  of  it 
to  the  selectmen  of  the  several  towns  in  the  province.  One  ol 
its  positions  is,  —  "The  right  to  freedom  being  the  gift  of  God 
Almighty,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  man  to  alienate  this  gift,  and 
voluntarily  become  a  slave."  And  to  show  how  the  sentiments 
of  this  statement  of  the  "  Rights  of  the  Colonies"  chimed  in  with 
the  feelings  of  the  people  of  the  towns,  more  than  eighty  of  them 
sent  in  their  cordial  response  in  its  favor,  within  the  first  five 
weeks  after  it  had  been  issued. 

The  part  which  was  taken  by  the  black  men  of  the  Province 
in  the  struggle  for  our  independence,  has  been  admirably  told  by 

1  Original  letter  to  Dr.  Belknap,  in  possession  of  Mass.  Hist.  Soc. 

2  Dr.  Wellington's  Letter ;  Coffin's  Newbury,  p.  340. 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         221 

one  fully  competent  to  do  it  justice,  in  a  work  of  our  late  asso 
ciate,  George  Livermore ;  nor  does  any  thing  need  to  be  added 
to  show  its  bearing  upon  the  subject  now  before  us.  Contem 
porary  history  is  full  of  illustrations ;  and  the  language  ascribed 
to  Colonel  Timothy  Bigelow,  of  the  Massachusetts  Fifteenth  of 
the  Continental  Line,  was  but  an  echo  of  the  sentiment  pervad 
ing  this  community  everywhere,  that,  "  while  fighting  for  liberty, 
he  would  never  be  guilty  of  selling  slaves." 

With  all  this  feeling,  however,  the  events  of  that  day  show 
that  it  was  tempered  with  prudence,  and  kept  in  subserviency  to 
the  great  interests  of  the  united  colonies,  in  the  common  struggle 
for  independence  in  which  they  were  engaged.  In  1777,  a  pe 
tition  was  presented  to  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  by 
a  number  of  Africans,  for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  A  bill  to 
that  effect  was  reported  and  read  twice,  and  then  laid  upon  the 
table,  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  with  the  Continental  Congress 
as  to  its  expediency.  In  their  letter,  or  petition,  to  Congress,  the 
Legislature  use  these  words  :  — 

"  Convinced  of  the  justice  of  the  measure,  we  are  restrained  from  pass 
ing  it,  only  from  an  apprehension  that  our  brethren  in  the  other  colonies 
should  conceive  there  was  an  impropriety  in  our  determining  on  a  question 
which  may,  in  its  nature  and  operation,  be  of  extensive  influence,  without 
previously  consulting  your  Honors." 

They  then  proceed  to  — 

"  ask  the  attention  of  your  Honors  to  this  matter,  that,  if  consistent  with 
the  union  and  harmony  of  the  United  States,  we  may  follow  the  dictates 
of  our  own  understanding  and  feelings ;  at  the  same  time  assuring  your 
Honors,  that  we  have  such  a  sacred  regard  to  the  union  and  harmony  of 
the  United  States,  as  to  conceive  ourselves  under  obligation  to  refrain 
from  any  measure  that  should  have  a  tendency  to  injure  that  union  which 
is  the  basis  of  our  defence  and  happiness." I 

1  A  writer  in  the  "New- York  Evening  Post,"  of  Jan.  28,  1869,  informs  the  pub-« 
lie,  in  a  communication  dated  Jan.  25,  1869,  including  the  letter  referred  to  in  the 
above  text,  that  he  had  "  discovered  the  draft  of  the  letter  to  Congress,  which  is  of 
sufficient  interest  to  deserve  publication."  A  copy  of  the  original  had  been  read 
before  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  at  its  regular  meeting  in  September, 
1868,  by  Charles  Deane,  Esq.,  its  secretary ;  and  the  above  extract  had  been  taken 
from  the  printed  sheets  of  the  forthcoming  volume  of  its  Transactions,  and  had  been 
delivered,  forming  a  part  of  this  lecture,  on  the  22d  of  the  same  January. 


222        SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  that  such  a  suggestion  as  the 
abolition  of  slavery  could  not  have  found  favor  among  those 
who  madly  clung  to  an  institution  which  was,  even  then,  begin 
ning  to  demoralize  the  coming  republic.  But  the  delicacy  of 
Massachusetts  in  the  manner  of  insisting  upon  it  does  not  dero 
gate  from  the  sincerity  with  which  she  sought  to  procure  it. 
And  when  the  tirrie  came  that  she  felt  at  liberty  to  act,  it  will  be 
found  that  she  did,  by  herself,  what  she  had  been  disposed  to  ask 
permission  of  her  sister  States  to  do,  —  set  open  the  doors  of 
bondage,  by  an  organic  law  of  freedom ;  and,  in  1780,  echoed 
back  the  spirit  of  the  Fathers  of  1641,  by  declaring  her  slaves 
free. 

To  understand  this  measure,  it  should  be  remembered,  that, 
in  becoming  a  free  State,  she  had  no  other  form  of  govern 
ment  than  the  inadequate  one  under  which  her  affairs  had 
been  administered  under  the  Crown.  It  was,  accordingly, 
attempted,  in  1777,  to  frame  a  constitution,  as  had  been 
done  by  some  others  of  the  colonies  which  had  now  become 
States. 

But  the  instrument  offered  to  the  people  contained  no  Declara 
tion  of  Rights,  and  was  otherwise  so  defective,  that  it  was 
rejected,  almost  without  a  count  of  the  votes.  This  was  followed 
by  the  Constitution  of  1780,  the  opening  declaration  of  which 
serves  as  a  key  to  the  whole  instrument,  that  "  all  men  are  born 
free  and  equal,  and  have  certain  natural,  essential,  and  unalien- 
able  rights."  Important  as  this  clause  was  held  to  be  in  its 
practical  bearing  upon  the  condition  of  the  slave,  it  contained  no 
new  thought,  nor  was  it  the  enunciation  of  any  new  dogma  in 
political  science.  It  had  come  down  from  early  times,  having 
been  advanced  and  maintained  by  a  Tuscan  writer  as  early  as 
1540 ;  and  had  been  often  repeated,  even  by  the  politicians  and 
statesmen  of  our  own  country.  We  read  it,  substantially,  in  the 
Declaration  of  our  Independence  of  1776.  It  had  found  a  place, 
the  same  year,  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  the  Constitution  of  Vir 
ginia  ;  and  it  was  repeated  in  that  of  New  Hampshire.  But 
in  its  application  to  bodies  politic,  it  seems  to  have  borrowed  its 
meaning  and  interpretation  from  the  habits  of  thought  on  the 
part  of  the  people  by  whom  it  was  used.  In  New  Hampshire, 
it  seems  to  have  been  read,  as  saying,  that  all  who  should  be 


SLAVERY   AS   IT   ONCE   PREVAILED   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.         223 

born  after  its  publication  were  to  be  free.  While  to  the  slave 
holders  of  Virginia,  and  such  as  construe  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence  in  the  same  light,  these  words  were  nothing  but  a 
"  glittering  generality."  But  to  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
these  words  were  things.  The  framers  of  that  constitution 
made  no  promise  to  the  ear  to  break  it  to  the  hope.  And 
when  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in  the  State  was  called 
upon  to  construe  and  apply  this  clause,  they  gave  a  response 
which  struck  off  the  chains  from  every  slave  in  the  Common 
wealth;  and  Massachusetts  was,  at  last,  what  she  had  so  long 
been  struggling  to  be,  in  all  her  dwellings,  indeed  the  home 
of  freemen. 

The  case  in  which  this  important  decision  was  made,  was  that 
of  a  black  man  in  the  County  of  Worcester,  by  the  name  of 
Quork  Walker.1  And  a  similar  case  was  soon  after  decided  in 
Berkshire,  where  a  black  woman,  by  the  name  of  Betty,  was 
the  subject.  A  case  involving  the  same  question  is  said  to 
have  arisen  in  Nantucket,  about  the  same  time,  in  which  a  like 
decision  was  had,  when  that  staunch  old  Quaker,  William 
Rotch,  Sr.,  without  waiting,  as  it  is  said,  for  any  action  of  the 
Court,  resolved  to  pay  the  lay  of  a  black  seaman,  in  a  whaling 
voyage,  to  himself,  instead  of  his  master,  on  the  ground  that  the 
Bill  of  Rights  had  made  him  free.  And  the  Court  sustained  him 
in  so  doing.  And  what  is  worthy  of  notice,  is  the  character  and 
position  of  the  men  in  the  profession  who  were  ready  to  engage 
in  the  cause  of  the  slave.  The  counsel  for  Walker  were  Levi 
Lincoln,  Sr.,  and  Caleb  Strong,  whose  very  names  are  a  part  of 
our  political  history.  And  the  counsel  for  the  slave  woman  in 
Berkshire  was  Theodore  Sedgwick,  afterwards  Speaker  of  Con- 

1  In  June,  1781,  "Walker  recovered  judgment  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas 
against  Jennison,  for  £50  damages ;  and  Jennison  appealed  to  the  Superior  Court. 
But,  failing  to  prosecute  his  appeal,  judgment  was  rendered  for  Walker,  at  the  Sep 
tember  Term  of  the  Superior  Court,  1781.  At  the  same  term  of  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas,  Jennison's  action  against  Caldwell  for  depriving  him  of  the  services  of  his 
servant,  Walker,  was  tried ;  and  a  verdict  was  returned  in  favor  of  the  defendant.  The 
plaintiff  appealed  ;  but,  at  the  September  Term  of  the  Superior  Court,  judgment  was 
rendered  for  the  defendant,  Caldwell.  At  the  same  term  of  the  Superior  Court,  Sep 
tember,  1781,  an  indictment  was  found  against  Jennison,  for  an  assault  upon  Walker. 
It  was  tried  before  a  jury,  at  the  April  Term,  1783 ;  and  the  defendant  was  found 
guilty,  and  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  $40  and  costs.  (Superior  Court  Records, 
Suffolk,  1781-2,  p.  84;  ib.  79,  1783,  p.  85.) 


224        SLAVERY  AS  IT   ONCE  PREVAILED   IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

gress,  and  Judge  of  our  Supreme  Court.  To  these  we  might 
add  the  names  of  Judge  John  Lowell  and  John  Adams,  to  say 
nothing  of  Samuel  Adams,  and  other  prominent  leaders  in  the 
politics  of  the  State. 

It  ought  not,  however,  to  be  kept  out  of  sight,  that  there  have 
been  those  who,  to  this  day,  cavil  at  the  construction  thus  put 
upon  this  clause  in  the  Constitution.  And  the  writer  already 
referred  to,  contests  the  idea  that  this  clause  in  the  Bill  of  Rights 
was  intended  "to  annul  the  condition  of  servitude;"  and  adds, 
"  We  have  made  diligent  inquiry,  search,  and  examination, 
without  discovering  the  slightest  trace  of  positive  contem 
porary  evidence  to  show  that  this  apinion  was  well  founded." ] 
He  seems  to  have  forgotten,  that  every  member  of  the  Court 
which  pronounced  this  judgment,  had  been  members  of  the 
Convention  which  formed  this  Constitution,  and  took  part  in  its 
discussions ;  and  two  of  them  were  of  the  committee  who  were 
appointed  to  prepare  a  draft  of  the  Bill  of  Rights.  Nor  is  this 
all :  Judge  Sullivan,  one  of  these,  and  afterwards  Attorney- 
General  and  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  in  a  letter  to  Dr. 
Belknap,  in  1795,  declared,  that  "  this  decision  put  an  end  to  the 
idea  of  slavery  in  this  State."  And  the  venerable  Samuel 
'  Dexter,  father  of  the  still  more  eminent  statesman  of  that  name, 
sums  up  an  account  of  this  case  with  this  brief  declaration : 
"  Thus  ended  slavery  in  Massachusetts."  And  here  the  subject 
might  properly  be  left,  so  far  as  the  truths  of  history  and  the 
good  fame  of  Massachusetts  are  concerned.  But  there  is  that  in 
the  history  of  this  subject  which  suggests  a  contrast  between 
slavery  as  it  existed  here  in  1660,  and  as  we  had  occasion  to 
witness  it  elsewhere  in  1860. 

It  was  a  living  organism  in  1660,  because,  as  we  are  told  by 
Lord  Brougham,  when  speaking  of  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
"  Every  measure  proposed  by  the  Colonial  Legislature,  which 
did  not  meet  the  entire  concurrence  of  the  British  Cabinet,  was 
sure  to  be  rejected  in  the  last  instance  by  the  Crown." 

In  1860,  it  owed  its  life  to  the  persistent  will  of  the  States 
themselves  in  which  it  prevailed.  It  never,  in  Massachusetts, 
divided  men  socially  into  classes ;  nor  did  it  build  up  a  spurious 
oligarchy  upon  the  roll-call  of  wretched  beings  under  the  ban  of 

1  Moore,  p.  203. 


SLAVERY  AS  IT   ONCE  PREVAILED  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.         225 

the  law.  It  did  not  arrest  the  privileges  or  progress  of  free  edu 
cation,  nor  did  it  stifle  the  sense  of  faith  and  allegiance  with 
which  a  generous  mind  regards  the  government  that  has  pro 
tected  and  the  country  that  has  reared  and  cherished  him.  And 
when  the  time  came  for  the  emancipation  of  the  black  man,  it 
found  the  master  ready  to  offer  the  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of 
liberty,  or  decorously  yielding  to  the  destiny  that  had  made 
him  free. 

And  the  history  of  the  Commonwealth  for  more  than  four 
score  years  has  shown,  that,  in  the  relations  of  civil  and  political 
liberty,  the  black  man  and  the  white  may  live  together  in  har 
mony  under  just  laws,  and  a  wise  and  liberal  Constitution. 
And  may  we  not  hope  that,  with  such  a  lesson  before  them, 
with  slavery  gone  for  ever,  the  men  of  our  day  may  yet  be  wise ; 
and  with  power  restored,  industry  revived,  and  national  harmony 
secured,  our  land  may  be  the  home  of  a  free,  a  united,  and  a 
prosperous  people? 


16 


RECORDS    OF    MASSACHUSETTS 


UNDER   ITS 


FIRST    CHARTER. 


BY    CHAELBS    W.    UPHAM. 


RECORDS    OF    MASSACHUSETTS 


UNDER  ITS 


FIRST    CHARTER. 


'TPHE  design  of  the  lecture  this  evening  is  to  consider  the 
-*•  Records  of  Massachusetts,  under  its  first  charter,  from  the 
point  of  view  in  which  they  illustrate  the  formation  of  a  body- 
politic. 

The  organization  of  families  and  communities  into  some 
established  order  is  demanded  by  the  conditions  of  our  nature. 
More  than  any  other  temporal  concern,  it  merits  and  compels 
the  attention,  of  thoughtful  minds ;  and  the  questions  relating  to 
it  have  always  been  acknowledged  to  rank  in  the  highest  depart 
ment,  as  subjects  of  inquiry  and  meditation.  Through  the  entire 
range  of  history,  the  greatest  minds  have  been  turned  to  it.  But 
a  glance  at  the  condition  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  shows  how 
unsatisfactory  have  been  the  results.  The  experience  of  ages 
has  effected  little;  and  the  theories  of  philosophers,  not  much 
more.  The  human  race  in  all  lands,  and  all  ages,  has  groaned 
under  the  crushing  weight  of  institutions  constructed  on  false 
principles.  Governments  everywhere  are  upheld  by  military 
force  ;  and  depend  for  continuance  upon  ignorance  and  supersti 
tion.  So  far  as  we  are  an  exception,  it  becomes  us  to  inquire 
to  what  we  owe  the  degree  of  our  exemption. 

Enlightened  views  on  the  subject  of  government  are  especially 
important  to  a  people  that  governs  itself.  We  can  hardly  expect 
to  obtain  them  from  treatises  and  essays,  however  ingenious  and 
learned.  There  is,  indeed,  an  inherent  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
attaining  to  the  truth  by  these  means.  Attempts  to  reason  and 
speculate  concerning  it  are  thwarted  by  the  influence  on  the 


230  RECORDS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

mind  of  pre-existing  usages  and  ideas.  Every  suggestion  of 
reform  is  encountered  by  the  necessity  of  adapting  it  to  a  sur 
rounding  state  of  things,  and  by  well-grounded  fear,  that,  how 
ever  specious  the  theory,  it  may  not  work  well  in  practice.  The 
elements  of  motive,  sentiment,  and  association,  that  actuate  man 
kind,  are  so  infinitely  diversified  that  they  cannot  be  calculated. 
Casual  events,  and  complicated  circumstances,  not  to  be  foreseen, 
may  bring  to  naught  the  best  considered  schemes. 

On  this  subject,  the  world  craves  and  needs,  not  what  theorists 
have  conjectured,  or  philosophers  propounded,  but  what  has  been 
tried,  and  found  sufficient.  The  question  is  — Has  a  fair  experi 
ment  ever  been  made,  under  favorable  auspices,  of  laying  the 
foundation,  and  building  the  fabric  of  a  government  of  men  ? 
and,  if  so,  let  it  be  brought  before  us. 

As  answering  this  question,  and  meeting  this  demand,  I  cite 
the  colony  of  Massachusetts,  during  its  first  half-century,  as 
more  to  the  purpose  than  any  other  instance  in  history. 

In  pursuance  of  the  recommendation  of  Governor  Clifford,  in 
a  special  message  of  Feb.  12,  1853,  the  Legislature  of  Mas 
sachusetts  ordered  the  first  and  second  volumes  of  the  "  Records 
of  the  Governor  and  Company  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  in 
New  England,"  to  be  printed,  embracing  the  proceedings  in 
London  prior  to  the  transfer  of  the  patent ;  and  continued  after 
.  that  event,  under  the  style  of  "  Colony  Records,"  to  1649. 
The  next  year  a  resolve  was  passed,  approved  by  Governor 
Washburn,  February  17,  for  printing  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth 
volumes,  carrying  the  record  to  1686,  and  covering,  altogether, 
the  entire  period  of  the  government  under  the  first  charter.  The 
form  and  manner  in  which  they  were  printed  do  honor  to  the 
Commonwealth,  and  to  the  distinguished  member  of  our 
society,  intrusted  with  the  responsible  duty  of  editing  them, 
Nathaniel  Bradstreet  Shurtleff.  The  copying  was  done,  under 
his  appointment,  by  David  PuMfer,  whose  thorough  acquaintance 
with  the  chirography  of  early  colonial  times  gives  assurance  of 
exactness. 

These  volumes  supply  the  most  important  instruction  any 
where  to  be  found,  on  the  formation  of  a  civilized  State.  They 
are  the  text-book  on  the  subject;  and  stand  alone  in  their  char 
acter,  and  the  value  of  their  contents,  as  I  proceed  to  show. 


UNDER  ITS  FIRST  CHARTER.  231 

On  the  3d  of  November,  1620,  James  I.  granted  by  letters- 
patent  all  that  section  of  North  America,  between  the  fortieth 
and  forty-eighth  parallels  of  latitude,  from  sea  to  sea,  to  the 
"  Council  established  at  Plymouth,  in  the  County  of  Devon,  for 
the  Planting,  Ruling,  Ordering,  and  Governing  of  New  England 
in  America." 

The  Council  at  Plymouth  conveyed  by  a  contract,  indented 
March  14, 1628,  so  much  of  the  territory,  included  in  their  afore 
said  patent,  as  was  between  lines,  three  miles  north  of  Merrimack 
River  and  three  miles  south  of  Charles  River,  running  from  sea 
to  sea,  to  Sir  Henry  Rosewell  and  Sir  John  Young,  Knights,' 
Thomas  Southcott,  John  Humphries,  John  Endicott,  and  Simon 
Whitcomb,  their  heirs,  assigns,  and  associates. 

One  year  afterwards,  namely,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1629,  in 
the  fourth  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  L,  letters-patent  passed 
the  seals,  confirming  to  the  above-named  six  persons,  and  twenty 
others,  severally  named,  who  had  become  associated  with  them, 
and  their  heirs,  and  assigns,  "  to  their  only  proper  and  absolute 
use  and  behoof  forevermore,"  the  territory  purchased  from  the 
Council  at  Plymouth.  These  twenty-six  individuals  thus  came 
into  complete  possession,  and  were  owners,  so  far  as  the  crown 
of  England  could  give  title,  of  the  continent  within  the  limits 
described.  The  vocabulary  of  ordinary  language,  and  of  the  law, 
was  exhausted  in  expressing,  in  every  possible  iteration  and 
reiteration,  the  fulness,  absoluteness,  and  perpetuity  of  the 
feofrnent  and  jurisdiction  thus  conveyed.  In  three  particulars 
only  was  any  limitation  imposed. 

The  company  was  forbidden,  in  ruling  its  vast  American 
domain,  to  make  regulations  repugnant  to  the  laws  of  England. 
But  this  was  merely  nominal,  as  no  provision  was  made,  or  re 
quired  to  be  made,  for  redress  of  any  wrong  done  by  the  com 
pany  to  a  planter,  or  to  any  outside  party.  There  was,  indeed, 
no  way  left  open,  through  which  the  regulations  of  the  company 
could  be  brought  to  adjudication  on  this  point.  No  political 
powers,  or  rights  whatever,  were  given  by  the  patent  to  the 
people  of  the  settlement ;  for  the  negative  protection  implied  in 
the  language,  that  no  laws  should  be  imposed  upon  them  in  con 
flict  with  the  statutes  of  the  realm,  was  a  mere  shadow  of  a  shade, 
as  events  proved. 


232  RECORDS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

The  company  was  required  to  pay  to  the  crown  one-fifth  part 
of  all  ores  of  gold  or  silver  found  in  the  country.  This 
amounted  to  nothing. 

There  was  one  other  condition,  which  also,  in  practice,  hardly 
amounted  to  any  thing.  The  patent  exempted  the  settlements, 
to  be  made  by  the  company,  from  all  duties  of  any  kind,  "  in 
ward  or  outward,"  for  seven  years ;  and,  after  that,  for  twenty- 
one  years  more,  with  this  exception  only,  that,  during  the  latter 
period,  they  were  to  be  subject  to  a  duty  of  five  per  cent  upon 
goods  shipped  from  the  plantations  to  any  other  part  of  the 
dominions  of  England.  But  this  had  no  sensible  effect  here,  for 
the  duty  was  to  be  exacted  at  the  outer  end  of  the  voyage,  in 
the  port  of  discharge ;  and  was  there  imposed  upon  all  alike, 
foreigners  as  well  as  other  colonists.  Further,  it  was  pledged  by 
the  crown,  that  on  the  re-exportation,  at  any  time  within  thirteen 
months,  of  goods  upon  which  this  duty  had  been  paid,  to  any 
country  whatever,  no  further  duty  of  any  kind  should  be  levied 
on  them.  The  whole  arrangement  was  justly  to  be  regarded  as 
the  assurance  of  a  privilege  rather  than  the  imposition  of  a 
burden.  No  provision  was  made  relating  to  the  subject,  on  the 
expiration  of  the  twenty-one  years,  but  the  whole  matter  left,  as 
between  the  crown  and  the  company  ;\for_it  must  be  noticed  that 
there  is  no  reference  whatever,  in  the  patent,  to  the  authority,  or 
even  the  existence,  of  Parliament,  except  as  implied  in  the  clauses 
requiring  the  regulations  of  the  company  not  to  be  repugnant  to 
the  laws  of  England.  The  duty  on  goods  was  not  in  deference 
to  any  acts  of  Parliament,  but  carefully  described,  as  "  according 
to  the  ancient  trade  of  merchants."  In  order  that  it  might  be 
made  clear  and  certain,  that  the  territories  embraced  in  the 
patent  should  not  be  subject  to  Parliament,  but  exclusively  con 
nected  with  the  personal  private  property  of  the  crown,  the 
device  was  adopted,  as  in  the  patent  to  the  Council  at  Plymouth, 
of  repeating  over  and  over  again,  that  they  were  appendages  of 
the  royal  demesnes,  "  to  be  holden  of  us,  as  of 'our  manor  of 
East  Greenwich."  They  were  to  be  regarded  as  an  enlarge 
ment  of  the  grounds  of  one  of  the  favorite  residences  of  the 
sovereign.  While  thus  protecting  them  from  interference  by  any 
other  parts  of  the  government,  the  King  bound  himself,  and  his 
heirs  and  successors,  to  the  end  of  time,  not  to  encroach  upon, 


UNDER  ITS   FIRST   CHARTER.  233 

but,  on  the  contrary,  to  uphold  the  administration  of  the  grantees 
in  governing  their  territory ;  and  enjoined  the  same  upon  all  ex 
ercising  authority,  civil  or  military,  throughout  his  dominions. 

The  persons  to  whom  the  patent  was  issued,  were  constituted 
a  body-politic.  They  were  to  choose,  annually,  from  among 
themselves,  a  governor,  deputy  governor,  and  eighteen  assistants. 
Any  seven  or  more  of  the  assistants,  together  with  the  governor 
or  deputy  governor,  were  to  hold  a  monthly  court,  for  disposing 
of  questions  arising  from  time  to  time,  and  requiring  immediate 
attention.  There  were  to  be  quarterly  meetings,  held  at  specified 
times,  by  the  whole  body  of  the  members,  or  "  freemen,"  as  they 
were  called,  of  the  company.  These  were  for  making  laws  or 
regulations,  and  the  transaction  of  weighty  business.  They  are 
spoken  of  in  the  patent  as  "  great,  general,  and  solemn  assem 
blies,"  and  termed  the  "  four  Great  and  General  Courts  "  of  the 
company.  At  the  quarterly  meeting,  occurring  in  Easter  term, 
that  is,  in  the  latter  part  of  May,  the  annual  elections  were 
required  to  be  made. 

The  King,  in  the  patent,  named  the  persons  who  were  to  fill 
the  offices  of  the  company,  until  the  time  fixed  for  an  election 
should  arrive.  It  is  remarkable,  that,  although  there  were  several 
knights  among  the  grantees,  he  selected  an  untitled  one  for  gov 
ernor.  "  We  do,  by  these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs,  and  succes 
sors,  nominate,  ordain,  make,  and  constitute  our  well-beloved 
Matthew  Cradock,  the  first  and  present  Governor  of  the  said 
company."  Cradock  was  a  London  merchant  of  great  wealth, 
and,  as  the  Records  show,  of  eminent  practical  ability,  energy, 
and  wisdom.  He  is  said  to  have  been  connected  by  family  ties, 
in  some  way,  with  Endicott,  which  accounts,  perhaps,  for  his 
having  been  drawn  in  as  an  associate  of  the  six  original  proprie 
tors,  and  for  the  deep  interest  he  took  in  the  enterprise.  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted,  I  think,  that  he  was  the  same  Matthew  Cra 
dock,  son  of  a  wool  merchant  in  Stafford,  who,  in  the  reign  of 
James  I.,  became  the  owner  of  the  baronial  estate  in  Stafford 
shire,  called  Caverswall.  The  castellated  mansion,  built  as  early 
as  the  Norman  conquest,  was  reconstructed  by  him,  under  the 
superintendence  of  Inigo  Jones.  It  is  still  standing  in  the  form 
Cradock  gave  to  it,  and  justly  regarded  as  "  one  of  the  most 
striking,  picturesque,  and  interesting  remains  of  a  distant  age.  A 


234  RECORDS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

venerable  and  "  solemn  fortress-like  structure,"  it  demands  special 
attention,  as  "  presenting  the  ideal  of  the  great  architect  of  the 
transition  from  the  ancient  castle  to  the  baronial  mansion." 
To  an  American  it  has  a  deeper  interest.  If  its  possessor  and 
occupant  was  the  "well-beloved"  Matthew  Cradock,  of  the 
patent,  it  will  appear,  as  we  proceed,  that  to  us  that  noble  man 
sion  will  ever  be  invested  with  sacred  memories  and  associations. 
Within  its  massive  walls  the  thought,  perhaps,  was  conceived 
which  has  made  Massachusetts  and  our  country  what  they  are 
to-day.  Cradock  was  returned  to  Parliament  from  the  city  of 
London,  in  1640,  and  died  not  long  after.1 

It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  patent  conferred 
upon  the  company,  in  the  most  emphatic  language,  all  political 
power  whatever,  without  any  reservation  that  touched  the  sub 
stance  of  the  grant.  This  is  so  vital  to  the  case,  as  I  am  pre 
senting  it,  that  the  expressions  used  may  be  quoted,  — 

"  We  do,  of  our  further  grace,  certain  knowledge,  and  mere  motion, 
give  and  grant  to  the  said  governor  or  deputy  governor,  and  such  of  the 
assistants  and  freemen  of  the  said  company,  for  the  time  being,  as  shall 
be  assembled  in  any  of  their  General  Courts,  or  in  any  other  courts  to  be 
specially  summoned  and  assembled  for  that  purpose,  or  to  the  greater  part 
of  them,  that  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful  to  and  for  them,  from  time  to  time, 
to  make,  ordain,  and  establish  all  manner  of  wholesome  and  reasonable 
orders,  laws,  statutes,  and  ordinances,  directions,  and  instructions,  not  con 
trary  to  the  laws  of  this  our  realm  of  England,  as  well  for  settling  of  the 
forms  and  ceremonies  of  government  and  magistracy  fit  and  necessary  for 
the  said  plantation  and  the  inhabitants  there,  and  for  naming  and  styling  of 
all  sorts  of  officers,  both  superior  and  inferior,  and  setting  forth  of  the 
several  duties,  powers,  and  limits  of  every  such  office  and  place,  and  for 
impositions  of  lawful  fines,  mulcts,  imprisonment,  or  other  lawful  cor 
rection,  and  for  the  directing,  ruling,  and  disposing  of  all  other  matters 
and  things." 

Some  dozen  or  two  knights  and  gentlemen,  more  or  less,  sit 
ting  in  the  parlors  of  Matthew  Cradock,  in  Swithen's  Lane, 
within  the  ancient  limits  of  London,  by  virtue  of  powers  thus 
granted,  held  absolute  sway  over  this  part  of  America,  from 

1  Baronial  Halls  and  Ancient  Picturesque  Edifices  of  England,  by  S.  C.  Hall, 
F.S.A.  London,  1858.  Proceedings  of  Essex  Institute,  vol.  i.  p.  242 :  Memoir  of 
Cradock,  by  David  Roberts. 


UNDER  ITS   FIRST   CHARTER.  235 

Massachusetts  Bay  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  ;  and  they  proceeded  to 
administer  their  government  by  transporting  settlers  forthwith. 

Very  soon  it  was  found  expedient  to  send  some  one  over  to 
superintend  affairs  here  on  the  spot,  and  John  Endicott,  an  orig 
inal  purchaser  of  the  country  from  the  Council  at  Plymouth,  was 
despatched  accordingly.  Some  months  after  his  departure,  the 
company,  on  the  30th  of  April,  1629,  elected  him  "  Governor  of 
the  Plantation  in  the  Massachusetts  Bay,"  and  a  commission 
was  duly  forwarded  to  him  with  the  form  of  an  oath  of  office. 
This  was,  however,  an  arrangement,  whereby  no  power  was 
parted  with  by  the  company.  It  was  a  limited  appointment. 
Endicott's  office  was  to  terminate  in  one  year  from  the  day  when 
he  took  the  oath,  and  the  right  was  expressly  reserved  of  remov 
ing  him  at  any  time  within  the  year.  His  authority  was  limited 
by  sundry  conditions,  and  reports  of  all  his  doings  were  required 
to  be  transmitted  to  London  for  approval.  He  executed  his 
functions  with  fidelity,  energy,  and  ability.  But,  notwithstand 
ing  all  his  efforts  and  those  of  his  employers,  the  affairs  of  the 
company  were  getting  into  embarrassment,  and  its  operations 
threatened  with  ruin. 

Cradock,  a  thorough  business  man,  appreciated  the  condition 
of  things.  He  saw  the  impending  catastrophe;  and,  being  of  a 
bold  and  courageous  spirit,  with  the  comprehensive  views  of 
a  statesman,  proved  himself  competent  to  discover  and  apply  the 
only  remedy  that  could  save  the  enterprise.  That  which  had 
been  fatal  to  colonial  success  in  other  attempts,  was  the  difficulty 
in  the  Massachusetts  plantation.  It  was  managed  by  a  distant 
administration.  Deliberations  and  determinations  by  a  body 
sitting  in  London  could  not  meet  the  exigencies  of  a  community, 
with  an  ocean  between,  and  the  interlapse  of  months  in  the 
transmission  of  orders  and  intelligence.  Forming  a  plan  by 
which  all  concerned  might  be  extricated  from  the  responsibilities 
in  which  they  were  becoming  more  and  more  involved,  he  was 
so  fortunate  as  to  secure  the  co-operation  of  parties  competent 
to  carry  it  through.  A  number  of  gentlemen  of  property,  char 
acter,  and  influence,  were  found  willing  to  join  the  company  and 
assume  its  burdens,  with  the  understanding  that  they  would  per 
sonally  transport  themselves  and  families  to  America,  and  make 
it  their  permanent  home,  provided  they  were  allowed  to  carry 


236  RECORDS  OP  MASSACHUSETTS 

the  patent  with  them,  hold  its  offices,  execute  its  functions,  and 
possess  all  its  rights  and  powers.  This  was  Cradock's  proposal, 
and  the  arrangement  was  consummated. 

John  Winthrop,  Thomas  Dudley,  and  others,  took  their  seats 
in  the  company,  at  a  meeting,  Oct.  15, 1629.  At  a  meeting,  five 
days  afterwards,  Cradock  vacated  the  chair,  and  Winthrop  was 
elected  governor,  with  a  new  board  of  assistants,  all  to  hold 
office  for  one  year  from  that  date.  Early  the  next  spring,  he  em 
barked  for  Massachusetts  Bay,  with  the  patent,  and  the  frame 
and  body  of  the  government.  Not  a  vestige  of  it  was  left  in 
England. 

There  were  undoubtedly  great  and  daring  irregularities  in 
these  proceedings,  which  could  not  have  escaped  notice,  and 
would  have  been  summarily  arrested,  had  there  been  the  slight 
est  suspicion  of  their  ultimate  consequences.  There  is  no  pre 
tence  of  authority  in  the  patent  for  the  removal  of  the  company 
out  of  the  realm,  or  for  the  relinquishment  of  his  office  by  Cra 
dock,  in  the  time  and  manner.  His  stepping  out  of  the  chair, 
on  the  20th  of  October,  without  even  going  through  the  cere 
mony  of  a  resignation,  and  the  election  of  Winthrop  to  serve  an 
annual  term,  when  by  the  patent  he  could  only  fill  out  an  unex- 
pired  term,  were  equally  without  justification.  Indeed,  no  pro 
vision  is  made  in  that  instrument  for  the  resignation  of  any  office, 
and  it  is  a  procedure  inadmissible  by  English  usage.  The 
transfer  of  the  company  to  America  brought  with  it  another 
violation  of  the  patent,  inasmuch  as  they  were  on  the  passage 
across  the  Atlantic  at  the  date  fixed  in  express  terms  for  the 
annual  election,  which  was  pretermitted  in  consequence  alto 
gether.  These  departures  from  and  violations  of  the  implied 
meaning  and  explicit  requirements  of  the  patent  were  necessi 
ties  involved  in  the  operation  of  the  transference  of  it  from 
England  to  America.  Those  engaged  in  it,  faced  the  responsi 
bilities  of  the  occasion  without  shrinking.  No  stricture,  or 
comment  of  any  kind,  appeared  from  any  quarter;  and  the  thing 
was  done. 

From  the  Records,  Matthew  Cradock  alone  appears  as  the 
originator  and  manager  of  this  business;  but  from  the  nature  of 
the  whole  proceeding,  it  is  evident  that  Winthrop  shared  with 
him,  as  a  principal  co-actor.  Let  them  each  have  the  glory  of 


UNDER  ITS  FIRST  CHARTER.  237 

the  transaction.  It  is  a  glory  that  will  become  brighter  through 
all  time.  History  sheds  no  purer  lustre  upon  any  names  than 
belongs  to  the  men  whose  wisdom  and  statesmanship  led  to  the 
bold  and  decisive  step  that  enabled  the  colony  of  Massachusetts 
to  bear  its  great  part  in  teaching  how  a  republic  can  be  built  up 
on  a  solid  and  permanent  foundation. 

The  patent  of  Charles  I.  to  the  Massachusetts  colony  is  what 
is  called  our  First  Charter;  and,  from  this  point,  I  shall  speak  of 
it  under  that  appellation. 

When  Winthrop's  fleet  came  to  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Salem, 
he,  and  such  members  of  the  company  as  had  accompanied  or 
preceded  him,  found  themselves  in  absolute  and  uncontrolled 
possession  of  the  country,  within  the  limits  of  their  charter. 
Their  jurisdiction  and  powers  were  complete;  and  had  they  been 
actuated  by  selfish  motives,  or  a  low  ambition,  and  retained  the 
character  of  a  close  corporation,  the  fortunes  of  the  plantation, 
and  their  own  fame,  would  have  had  the  same  fate,  that  of  a  brief 
duration  and  an  ignoble  end. 

The  charter  gave  to  them,  in  express  and  repeated  terms  and 
without  limitation,  the  right  to  admit  new  associates.  Persons 
thus  admitted  became  full  partners  and  equal  members  of  the 
company,  called,  as  has  been  stated,  Freemen.  The  exercise  of 
this  right  was  the  magic  by  which  they  converted  what  was 
originally  a  royal  act  of  incorporation  for  business  and  com 
mercial  purposes,  into  the  constitution  of  a  free  and  noble  Com 
monwealth.  In  the  year  1631,  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  of 
the  resident  population  were  admitted,  and  in  the  next  ten  years 
twelve  hundred  more, 

By  this  generous  and  enlightened  policy,  the  PEOPLE  here 
acceded  to  the  rights  and  powers  given  in  the  charter.  The 
Colony  of  Massachusetts  became  an  independent  State.  Parlia 
ment  could  not  touch  it,  and  the  crown  had  bound  itself  to  keep 
its  hands  off. 

The  result  of  the  proceedings  thus  far  may  be  restated,  at  this 
point,  in  a  few  words :  The  charter  gave  to  the  Massachusetts 
Company  sovereignty  over  its  territory.  The  admission  of  the 
people  of  the  plantation  into  the  company  gave  that  sovereignty 
to  them.  Having  the  charter  in  their  possession,  and  rightfully 
holding  under  it,  they  claimed  and  exercised  absolute  self-govern 
ment. 


238  RECORDS   OP  MASSACHUSETTS 

One  hundred  and  forty-six  years  before  the  Declaration  of  the 
Independence  of  the  United  States,  this  was  an  independent 
government,  and  continued  so  for  more  than  half  a  century, — 
more  independent,  in  fact,  than  it  has  ever  been  since.  Between 
the  period  of  the  First  Charter  and  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  it 
was  a  dependent  province,  its  governors  appointed  by  the  British 
monarch,  and  the  royal  assent  needed  to  give  validity  to  its  laws. 
Since  the  opening  of  the  Revolutionary  conflict,  to  this  hour,  it 
has  been,  in  many  respects  and  to  a  considerable  extent,  subject 
to  the  old  Congress  of  the  Confederation,  and  subsequently  to 
the  Government  of  the  United  States.  But  during  the  fifty-eight 
years  of  the  First  Charter,  the  people  were  as  free  to  rule  them 
selves  as  if  they  had  been  on  another  planet.  They  chose  all 
their  own  officers,  asked  no  approval  of  their  laws,  suffered 
no  appeal  in  any  case  to  the  mother  country,  and  bowed  to  no 
tribunals  but  of  their  own  erection.  This  was,  and  ought  to  be 
considered,  the  first  era  of  American  independence. 

In  this  respect,  that  is,  in  exemption  from  foreign  interference, 
the  situation  of  the  original  colonists  of  Massachusetts  was  all 
that  could  be  desired ;  in  other  respects  it  was  equally  favorable. 
All  the  requisite  conditions  for  the  formation  of  a  good  govern 
ment  existed.  A  country  lay  before  them,  unoccupied,  open, 
and  free ;  sufficiently  large  to  give  room  for  the  experiment,  and 
comprising  features  and  resources  adapted  to  the  uses  of  an  in 
dustrious  and  intelligent  people,  with  only  here  and  there  a  soli 
tary  previous  settler,  or  remnants  of  Aboriginal  tribes  in  no  way 
fastened  to  the  soil.  They  had  among  them  many  persons  of 
large  experience  in  affairs,  conversant  with  the  laws  and  customs, 
not  only  of  their  own  native  country,  but  of  the  nations  of  Con 
tinental  Europe,  and  well  read  in  ancient  history.  Some  of  them 
had  held  eminent  social  position,  and  were  of  enlarged  culture ; 
and  not  a  few,  having  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  the  highest 
schools  and  seats  of  academic  learning,  and  of  Inns  of  Court, 
were  remarkably  qualified  to  act  the  part  of  statesmen.  There 
probably  was  a  greater  amount  of  practical  wisdom  and  energy 
among  them  than  in  any  community,  of  equal  numbers,  ever 
brought  together.  What  they  had  endured  in  the  old  country, 
and  the  sacrifices  they  had  encountered  in  getting  away  from  it, 
and  in  opening  their  wilderness  homes,  had  given  them  an  indi- 


UNDER  ITS  FIRST  CHARTER.  239 

vidual  force  and  independence  of  character,  and  liberated  their 
minds  from  the  influence  of  all  sentimental  associations  and  tra 
ditional  attachments  to  the  usages,  institutions,  and  social 
fixtures  of  all  kinds  in  the  old  country. 

An  opportunity  was  thus  given  to  solve  the  problem  of  govern 
ment;  to  ascertain  and  determine  the  true  method  of  forming  a 
political  organization  in  accordance  with  nature,  reason,  justice, 
and  right,  not  to  be  paralleled  elsewhere  in  the  old  or  new 
world. 

The  colony  of  Plymouth,  although  dating  ten  years  earlier 
than  Massachusetts  and  extending  its  distinct  history  to  the  close 
of  the  era  of  our  First  Charter,  cannot,  in  some  respects,  be 
regarded  as  standing  on  the  same  level.  Its  territory  was  not 
large  enough  to  form  the  basis  of  a  State,  developed  to  its  full 
dimensions  and  ramifications.  Until  after  the  process  of  political 
organization  was  under  way  here,  the  older  colony  could  hardly 
give  its  attention  to  any  thing  else  than  the  struggles  required  to 
extricate  itself  from  financial  entanglements  with  parties  in  Eng 
land.  It  was  long  before  they  could  feel  that  the  houses  they 
had  built,  and  the  lands  they  had  cleared,  were  their  own.  The 
infant  community  springing  from  Plymouth  rock  demands,  how 
ever,  the  sympathy,  veneration,  and  imitation  of  the  friends  of 
freedom  and  virtue. 

Before  landing,  on  the  llth  of  November,  1620,  the  Pil 
grims  executed  a  written  instrument,  known  as  "  The  Compact," 
covenanting  and  combining  themselves  together  "  into  a  civil 
body  politick,"  subscribed  by  forty-one  persons.  Among  the 
names  are  those  of  several  who  were  servants,  some  who  were 
sailors,  and  one,  at  least,  who  could  have  had  no  pretensions  to 
consideration  on  the  ground  of  personal  merit,  for  he  is  spoken 
of  by  Bradford  as  having  been  "  shuffled  into  their  company." 
From  the  first,  he  appears  to  have  incurred  censure  for  his  "  mis 
carriages."  In  1621,  he  was  tied  together  "  neck  and  heels  "  for 
contempt  of  authority  and  "  opprobrious  speeches,"  and  in  1630, 
hanged  for  murder. 

In  view  of  these  facts  we  must  consider  the  compact,  drawn 
up  in  the  cabin  of  the  "  Mayflower,"  as  an  instance  of  universal 
suffrage,  announcing  the  cardinal  principle  of  a  government  rest 
ing  upon  the  whole  people,  and  deriving  its  authority  from  the 


240  RECORDS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

voices  of  all  descriptions  of  persons,  without  distinction  of  rank, 
condition,  or  character,  with  a  comprehensiveness  which  Massa 
chusetts  was  long  in  reaching,  and  to  which  the  United  States 
could  only  have  been  brought  by  passing  through  the  Red  Sea 
of  our  recent  intestine  war. 

The  public  documents  and  records  of  the  colony  of  Plymouth 
have  justly  been  regarded  as  among  the  chief  historical  treasures 
of  the  Commonwealth  in  which  it  was  merged.  In  1836,  a 
resolve  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  was  approved  by  Gov 
ernor  Everett  for  the  publication  of  the  Laws  of  the  Old  Colony  ; 
and  by  his  appointment  they  were  prepared  for  the  press  and 
edited  by  our  esteemed  associate  who,  in  a  preceding  lecture  of 
this  course,  has  done  justice  to  the  legislation  of  that  colony.  The 
result  of  his  labors  appeared  in  a  valuable  and  interesting  volume 
entitled  "  The  Compact,  with  the  Charter  and  Laws  of  the  Colony 
of  New  Plymouth."  In  1855,  a  resolve  was  passed,  approved  by 
Governor  Gardner,  to  publish  the  "  Records  of  the  Colony  of  New 
Plymouth ;  "  which  was  executed  by  printing  them  in  the  same 
beautiful  shape  as  the  Massachusetts  Records,  during  the  period 
of  the  First  Charter.  The  work  was  performed  under  the 
superintendence  of  the  same  editor,  Dr.  Shurtleff.  They  show 
in  detail  the  proceedings  of  a  community,  of  a  comparatively 
small  population,  on  a  limited  area,  conducting  its  affairs  wisely 
and  justly.  Its  institutions  were  simple  and  unpretentious,  and 
administered  by  enlightened  men,  with  as  righteous  purposes 
and  free  a  spirit  as  the  world  ever  saw.  But  when  we  con 
sider  government,  as  branching  out  in  the  directions  demanded 
by  a  people  in  the  exigencies  of  an  expanding  growth,  requiring 
complicated  arrangements  and  functions  to  meet  its  wants, 
it  is  obvious  that  such  an  opportunity  to  develop  it  was  not 
afforded  in  Plymouth  as  in  Massachusetts.  It  was  not,  for 
instance,  until  1640  that  any  thing  like  a  House  of  Deputies 
appeared,  representing  towns  in  a  General  Assembly  in  the 
older  colony.  In  such  respects  it  fell  in  our  rear,  even  in  the 
order  of  time. 

Rhode  Island  originally  consisted  of  several  plantations,  con 
flicting  with  each  other,  and  carrying  their  contentions  to  the 
notice  of  the  mother  country,  thereby  keeping  their  affairs  more 
or  less  within  its  jurisdiction.  Its  first  General  Court,  in  which 


UNDER  ITS  FIRST   CHARTER.  241 

towns  were  represented,  was  held  in  1647.  Nothing,  however, 
can  impair  its  glory,  in  having  first  planted  and  ever  sacredly 
cherished  the  immortal  principle  of  religious  liberty. 

What  is  now  Connecticut  consisted,  for  some  time,  of  distinct 
jurisdictions.  Their  affairs,  like  those  of  Rhode  Island,  were 
dependent  upon  decisions  looked  for  from  the  mother  country ; 
and  finally,  in  1665,  they  were  consolidated,  by  the  authority  of 
the  crown,  extinguishing  the  colony  of  New  Haven,  into  one 
government.  The  gallant  rescue  of  the  charter  obtained  at  that 
time,  from  the  grasp  of  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  at  Hartford  in  1687, 
is  justly  regarded  one  of  the  most  memorable  incidents  of  Ameri 
can  history.  It  continued  in  force  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
and  saved  Connecticut  from  experiencing  the  fate  to  which 
Massachusetts  was  subjected,  after  the  loss  of  its  First  Charter 
privileges,  of  a  dependent  province.  It  remained,  in  fact,  the 
constitution  of  the  State  of  Connecticut  until  1818. 

What  are  now  Maine  and  New  Hampshire  were  claimed  by 
conflicting  proprietors;  a  large  part  of  the  former,  more  or  less, 
under  a  foreign  jurisdiction,  and  both  of  them  much  of  the  time 
under  that  of  Massachusetts. 

As  this  colony  was  organized,  and  in  full  action,  as  a  civil 
government,  before  the  other  New-England  plantations ;  as  it  was 
central  to  them,  to  a  great  degree  their  common  mother,  and  so 
much  more  populous  than  either,  —  its  history  is  of  larger  signifi 
cance  and  importance.  In  many  instances,  —  indeed,  for  the  most 
part,  —  they  followed  in  its  track  and  conformed  to  its  practices. 

New  York  was  a  Dutch  dependency  until  1664 ;  and  its  first 
legislative  Assembly  was  in  1683.  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Delaware,  and  the  Carolinas  were  proprietary  provinces.  Mary 
land  had  a  legislative  Assembly  in  1639 ;  but  remained  a  pro 
prietary  government.  The  early  colonial  condition  of  Virginia 
was  much  interrupted,  and  long  in  an  unsettled  state. 

The  records  and  memorials  of  all  the  colonies  are,  however, 
of  great  value,  presenting  many  features  worthy  of  study,  and, 
in  some  particulars,  severally  having  claims  to  special  credit. 

Massachusetts  alone,  was  all  along,  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  left  unmolested  to  form  a  government,  at  her  leisure, 
and  as  she  saw  fit.  The  Records  that  tell  how  she  did  it,  pos 
sess,  therefore,  a  value  altogether  unique.  They  exhibit  precisely 

16 


242  RECORDS   OP   MASSACHUSETTS 

what  a  student  of  political  science  needs  to  know,  and  what  can 
nowhere  else  be  found.  I  proceed  to  note  a  few  of  the  stages 
in  the  progress  of  eliminating  the  elements,  and  shaping  the 
forms,  of  an  effective,  natural,  and  well-adjusted  social  and 
political  organization,  narrated  in  them. 

After  admitting  the  people  to  the  freedom  and  power  of  the 
company,  the  founders  of  Massachusetts  applied  themselves 
slowly  and  cautiously,  but  with  decisive  measures,  to  their  work. 
For  some  time,  the  company,  at  its  meetings,  which  were  all 
called  Courts,  took  the  entire  management  of  affairs,  however 
trivial,  into  its  own  immediate  hands,  acting  directly  on  all 
matters  whatsoever  relating  to  person  or  property.  At  their  first 
meeting,  the  governor  and  assistants  were  invested  with  the 
necessary  powers  to  execute  orders  and  decisions.  At  the  next 
meeting,  a  beadle,  afterwards  dignified  with  the  title  of  marshal, 
was  sworn  in,  whose  duty  it  was  to  attend  the  governor  and 
execute  his  commands ;  also  to  be  present  at  the  Court,  to  main 
tain  and  enforce  respect  for  its  authority.  The  character  and 
functions  of  justices  of  _thfi_peace  were  conferred  upon  the 
governor,  deputy  governor,  and  six  of  the  assistants.  Constables 
were  appointed  in  the  principal  settlements. 

It  soon  became  apparent,  that  it  was  impracticable  for  assem 
blies  of  the  whole  body  of  the  freemen,  or  for  the  Governor  and 
assistants  at  their  monthly  meetings,  to  attend  to  the  multifarious 
matters  constantly  demanding  adjudication,  in  settlements  as  yet 
without  known  laws  or  established  customs,  and  separated  from 
each  other  by  pathless  forests.  Cases  could  not  reach  the 
Court,  with  all  the  evidence  required  to  decide  upon  them  justly ; 
and  the  Court,  therefore,  had  to  go  to  the  cases.  Certain  persons 
were  appointed  in  several  localities,  with  limited  jurisdiction,  "  to 
end  small  causes,"  as  they  expressed  it.  The  body  of  the  free 
men,  in  General  Court  assembled,  having  thus  begun  to  part 
with  a  portion  of  their  power,  and  entered  upon  the  path  that 
separates  judicial_  from  legislative  functions,  carefully  felt  their 
way  along,  creating  local  tribunals  in  the  towns,  establishing 
counties  with  courts  of  trial  within  them,  and  gradually  develop 
ing  a  comprehensive  system  of  judicature. 

In  1630,  certain  persons,  their  number  not  always  being 
twelve,  were  appointed  by  the  General  Court  to  find  and  report 


UNDER  ITS   FIRST   CHARTER.  243 

to  it  the  facts  relating  to  particular  cases,  thus  originating  here  the 
institution  of  a  jury,  as  it  has  come  down  to  us.  The  General 
Court  continued,  however,  in  most  cases,  to  examine  and  decide 
matters  directly.  In  1635,  grand  juries  were  provided  to  present 
cases  to  the  General  Court. 

The  administration  of  estates,  and  the  distribution  of  property, 
whether  of  testates  or  intestates,  the  General  Court,  for  some 
time,  kept  in  its  own  hands,  heeding  the  law  and  practice  in 
England,  as  far  as  it  saw  fit  ;  but  at  a  very  early  period,  the 
policy  was  discussed,  and  finally  carried  into  effect,  of  passing 
the  whole  business  over  to  special  functionaries.  Probate 
officers  were  provided.  Special  care,  however,  was  taken  to 
divest  this  branch  of  the  law  of  the  ecclesiastical  character 
given  to  it  in  the  mother  country.  In  arranging  the  judicial 
department,  the  General  Court,  consisting  as  it  did,  immediately 
or  by  representation,  ot  the  whole  people,  seems  during  the  entire 
period  of  the  First  Charter,  to  have  retained  in  its  own  hands  an 
ultimate  control.  An  appeal  to  its  revising  and  final  judgment 
was  kept  open  from  all  tribunals  and  in  all  descriptions  of  cases. 
Although  subsequent  experience  has  shed  great  additional  light 
upon  the  subject  of  the  true  position  of  the  judiciary,  the  records, 
now  under  review,  may  well  be  studied,  conveying,  as  they  do, 
much  pertinent  instruction  and  matter  for  reflection. 

As  the  plantations  multiplied,  and  spread  into  the  interior,  it 
became  inconvenient  for  the  people  to  be  fully  present  at  the 
meetings  of  the  General  Court,  and  the  transaction  of  business 
was  embarrassed  by  an  irregular  and  unreliable  attendance.  ___In_ 


he  expedient  was  adopted  of  advising  the  appointment 
of  two  persons  in  each  plantation  to  confer  with  the  Governor 
and  assistants,  about  the  raising  of  a  public  stock.  In  1634,  it 
was  made  lawful  for  the  freemen  of  the  several  settlements,  to 
choose  two  or  three  of  their  number  to  attend  the  Court,  to 
confer  about  public  affairs  generally,  and  to  "  have  the  full  power 
and  voices  of  all  the  said  freemen  derived  to  them  for  the  making 
and  establishing  laws,  granting  lands,"  &c.  The  principle  of 
representation  was  thus  gradually  introduced.  All  the  planta 
tions  fell  into  the  practice  of  appointing  such  delegates,  wrho 
were  called  deputies.  For  a  few  years  they  sat  with  the  assist 
ants  in  the  same  room,  the  Governor  or  deputy  governor  presiding 


244  RECORDS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

over  the  joint  body.  It  seems  to  have  become  the  custom  for  the 
deputies,  to  vote  separately  from  the  assistants ;  and  a  concur 
rence  of  the  votes  of  the  two  portions  of  the  assembly  was 
required  to  carry  a  measure.  Finally,  it  was  concluded  to  have 
them  sit  in  different  rooms ;  and  the  deputies  were  organized  as 
a  distinct  house,  choosing  their  own  speaker.  In  this  way  a 
double  legislature  was  established.  The  fact  that  it  has  been 
adopted  in  all  our  States,  and  in  the  United  States  government, 
would  seem  to  prove  that  it  is  founded  on  sufficient  reasons,  and 
essential  to  good  legislation.  In  this,  as  in  all  things  else,  where 
the  practice  established  here  resembled  that  of  the  mother 
country,  the  resemblance  was  not  the  result  of  a  spirit  of  con 
formity,  or  in  deference  to  authority  from  that  quarter,  but 
solely  because,  in  the  natural  progress  of  events,  it  was  found 
expedient. 

At  an  early  day  the  General  Court  parted  with  a  very  con 
siderable  portion  of  its  sovereignty  to  the  several  plantations, 
together  with  the  fee  of  the  lands  within  the  limits  of  the  same, 
thereby  calling  into  existence  what  has  always  been  regarded 
one  of  the  chief  elements  of  our  political  civilization,  —  Towns. 
John  Adams  declared,  that  to  them,  in  a  great  degree,  was  to  be 
attributed  the  preparation  of  this  people  to  engage  in,  and  carry 
through,  the  conflict  of  the  Revolution.  They  are  the  nurseries 
of  freedom,  schools  of  universal  education  in  popular  rights,  and 
alone  can  fit  a  people  to  make,  obey,  and  execute  the  laws.  No 
country  can  take  the  true  start,  or  secure  reliable  progress  in 
political  reform,  without  them  ;  and  there  is  no  race  so  degraded, 
as  not  to  be  redeemed  to  a  capacity  for  self-government,  if 
trained  by  such  an  institution  to  the  exercise  of  control  over 
affairs,  by  local  communities  in  distinct  neighborhoods. 

Similar  arrangements  had  existed  for  centuries  in  the  mother 
country ;  and  to  them  can  be  traced  the  characteristics  which 
have  made  the  English  people  competent  to  uphold  a  constitu 
tional  government.  The  encroachment  upon  these  small  local 
jurisdictions,  —  by  modern  Parliamentary  interference  and  the 
establishment  of  central  commissions  or  bureaus,  —  is  regarded  as 
having  already  lowered  the  character  of  the  population  of  the 
rural  districts  of  the  kingdom.  Towns  were  the  basis  of  what 
are  called  hundreds  ;  and  in  different  sections  of  England,  at 


UNDER  ITS  FIRST  CHARTER.  245 

different  times,  had  different  appellations,  as  thorp,  now  village, 
or  hamlet;  burgh,  now  borough;  and  town.  The  last,  being  prob 
ably  the  original  name,  was  the  prevalent  one  ; l  although  when 
our  fathers  left  England,  it  had  become  superseded,  in  some  locali 
ties,  by  ville,  and  parish.  But,  under  the  latter  designation,  the  in 
stitution  had  been  perverted  from  its  original  character,  which  was 
purely  secular,  brought  under  the  power  of  the  Church,  and  made 
to  receive  an  ecclesiastical  impress.2  The  lawgivers  of  Massachu 
setts  were  too  true  to  their  British  ancestry  to  call  them  villes, 
and  their  repugnance  to  associations,  connected  with  the  hierarchy 
at  home,  forbid  their  calling  them  parishes.  They  went  back  to 
the  old  Anglo-Saxon  name.  They  made  the  jurisdiction  of 
towns  quite  limited  at  first,  gradually  enlarging  it,  until  it 
reached  the  dimensions  still  retained,  embracing  powers  the 
most  momentous,  and  constituting  by  far  the  greatest  portion 
of  what  we  feel  to  be  the  government  under  which  we  live. 

When  the  public  exigencies  demanded  it,  a  confederation  of 
colonies  was  effected  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Connecticut  plan 
tations,  but  under  the  lead  of  Massachusetts.  The  entries  con 
tained  in  the  Records  on  this  subject,  and  the  documents  connected 
with  its  organization  and  operation,  may  be  safely  said  to  stand 
the  test  of  comparison  with  the  State  papers  of  the  originators  of 
the  Confederation  of  the  Revolutionary  age,  and  of  the  founders 
of  our  Federal  Constitution,  as  showing  the  legitimate  boundaries 
between  the  powers  of  separate  States  and  of  any  general  govern 
ment  that  may  be  established  among  them. 

The  elements  that  give  energy  to  a  commonwealth,  in  peace 
or  war,  are  strikingly  disclosed  and  illustrated  in  the  history  of 
Massachusetts  under  the  First  Charter.  A  more  efficient  gov 
ernment  for  the  preservation  of  order,  security,  and  the  common 
welfare,  has  never  existed  ;  and  the  rapidity  with  which  the  public 
resources  were  brought  to  bear  in  military  movements,  while  it 
was  repeated  at  the  opening  of  the  war  of  Independence,  has 
never  been  surpassed,  even  in  our  day,  which  has  witnessed 

1  A  Restitution  of  Decayed  Intelligence  in  Antiquities  concerning  our  Nation, 
by  Richard  Verstigan,  1605,  chap.  ix.  p.  295. 

2  The  Parish,  its  Obligations  and  Powers ;  its  officers  and  their  duties,  with  illus 
trations  of  the  practical  workings  of  the  institution  in  all  secular  affairs,  by  Toulmin 
Smith.     London,  1854. 


246  RECORDS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

the  uprising  in  their  might  of  a  great  people  to  save  the  national 
life. 

The  early  records  of  Massachusetts  shed  light  upon  all  sub 
jects  that  relate  to  the  development  of  the  moral  as  well  as 
physical  strength  of  a  State,  particularly  the  diffusion  of  knowl 
edge,  and  of  a  public  spirit  ready  to  assume  burdens  and  face  dan 
ger  ;  and  to  sacrifice  ease,  property,  and  life,  for  the  common  weal. 

The  promptitude,  boldness,  and  impartiality  of  the  internal 
administration  of  the  government  are  particularly  noticeable. 
Offences  were  rebuked  and  disorder  suppressed  by  sure  and 
decisive  measures :  no  rank  or  station,  no  popular  affection  or 
habitual  reverence  for  particular  persons,  however  eminent  or 
honored,  could  obstruct  the  course  or  embarrass  the  movements 
of  even-handed  power.  The  General  Court,  in  the  exercise  of 
its  sovereignty,  treated  all  men  alike,  in  as  well  as  out  of  its  own 
body.  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall  was  fined  ;  Endicott  was  admon 
ished,  disqualified  temporarily  for  holding  office,  and  committed 
for  contempt  of  the  authority  and  dignity  of  the  Court ;  and  even 
Winthrop,  once  in  a  while,  was  dropped  from  his  high  place.  | 

In  the  administration  of  external  affairs,  the  General  Court 
was  equally  disregardful  of  all  weak  and  timid  considerations. 
Nothing  can  surpass  the  spirit,  courage,  ability,  and  success,  with 
which  it  withstood  and  repelled  attempts  of  encroachment  from 
the  mother  country. 

There  was  always  a  powerful  party  busily  at  work  in  the 
Court  at  London,  bent  upon  the  suppression  of  the  Massachu 
setts  colony ;  but  by  skilful  diplomacy  on  the  part  of  the  Court 
and  its  able  agents  in  England,  following  the  policy  compre 
hended  by  Winthrop  in  two  words,  —  "  Avoid  and  protract ; "  by 
standing  tenaciously  and  resolutely  upon  their  charter,  particu 
larly  that  feature  of  it  which  left  no  opening  for  an  appeal  to  the 
mother  country,  and  provided  no  process  by  which  complaints 
could  legitimately  be  brought  against  the  company;  by  the 
opportune  diversion  of  attention  from  colonial  matters  to  occur 
rences  in  'England,  especially  those  connected  with  the  contro 
versy  between  the  King  and  Parliament ;  and  by  the  blessing  of 
Providence,  —  every  blow  was  warded  off,  until  two  generations 
had  laid  the  foundations  of  the  political  fabric  too  deep  to  be 
moved. 


UNDER  ITS   FIRST   CHARTER.  247 

It  became,  indeed,  quite  early  a  general  feeling,  among  sensi 
ble  people  in  England,  that  it  was  about  as  well  to  let  the 
unmanageable  and  spunky  little  colony  alone. 

Collier,  in  his  "  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Great  Britain,"  quotes 
at  length  the  Order  in  Council  Archbishop  Laud  issued,  June 
17,  1634,  to  all  places  of  trade  and  plantation  where  the  English 
were  settled,  enjoining  the  establishment  of  the  national  church 
in  them,  and  remarks,  that,  while  that  order  was  extended  to  all 
the  four  great  divisions  of  the  world,  and  generally  received  and 
obeyed  in  all  colonies  and  settlements,  "  New  England  was  some 
what  of  an  exception.  The  Dissenters,"  he  continues,  "  who 
transported  themselves  thither,  established  their  own  fancy." 

Charles  II.,  however,  was  prevailed  upon  by  the  enemies  of  the 
colony  to  send  over,  in  1664,  Commissioners  to  reduce  it  to  sub 
ordination  ;  but  they  went  back  as  they  came,  disconcerted  by  the 
firmness  and  outgeneralled  by  the  strategy  of  the  colonial 
authorities.  The  records  containing  the  communications  that 
passed  between  these  gentlemen  and  the  General  Court,  show  the 
wonderful  sagacity,  wariness,  and  ability  of  the  latter.  The  royal 
commissioners  were  allowed  to  gain  no  advantage  in  the  encoun 
ter,  but  were  drawn  into  false  positions  and  exposed  attitudes 
by  the  expert  fencing  of  their  adversary,  until  they  were  utterly 
discomfited  and  disarmed,  j  The  whole  affair,  as  we  read  its 
particulars,  becomes  absolutelyamusing,  from  the  superior  wis 
dom  and  adroitness  of  the  Court.  Every  attempt  to  bring  the 
administration  here  under  the  control  of  the  mother  country, 
ended  in  equally  humiliating  failure. 

It  cannot,  indeed,  be  doubted,  that,  if  matters  had  come  to 
extremities  at  any  time,  even  at  the  earliest  period,  when  the 
population  scarcely  reached  up  into  the  thousands,  they  would 
have  resisted  in  arms  any  hostile  force  that  should  have  ventured 
to  land  on  their  shores,  from  whatever  quarter  it  might  come  ; 
relying  on  the  justness  of  their  cause,  and  the  Divine  aid,  on 
which  they  cast  themselves  with  prayer  and  faith,  as  no  other 
people  ever  did.  Winthrop  informs  us,  that  in  January,  1635,  in 
the  prevalence  of  an  apprehension  that  a  General  Governor  was 
about  to  be  sent  over  from  England,  the  Court  asked  the  minis 
ters,  convened  on  the  occasion,  what  ought  to  be  done  in  that 
event?  and  they  replied,  with  one  voice,  that  he  ought  not  to  be 


248  RECORDS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

received.  The  fort  at  Castle  Island  was  immediately  built,  and 
a  large  commission  appointed,  consisting  of  the  principal  inhabi 
tants,  of  which  Winthrop  was  at  the  head,  for  "  military  affairs," 
to  organize  and  arm  the  whole  strength  of  the  country  for  either 
"  offensive  or  defensive  war."  The  idea  was  familiarly  expressed 
by  all,  that  they  would  no  sooner  relinquish  their  rights  under  the 
charter  than  their  estates,  that  they  would  fight  for  both ;  and, 
if  driven  from  their  houses  and  lands  on  the  seashore,  they 
would  withdraw  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  forests,  carrying  their 
charter,  the  ark  of  their  covenant,  with  them.  And  finally,  when 
James  II.  abrogated  the  charter  and  took  ruthless  possession  of 
the  country,  with  a  design,  as  the  colonial  statesmen  believed, 
in  pursuance  of  a  secret  treaty,  to  cede  it  to  France,  the  people  of 
Boston  and  the  vicinity  rose  in  their  wrath.  Sir  Edmund  Andros 
found  himself,  the  next  morning,  in  the  lock-up  at  Fort  Hill. 
He  was  removed  for  safer  keeping  to  Castle  Island,  which,  by 
holding  as  a  prisoner  the  deposed  royal  governor,  fairly  won  a 
right  to  the  title,  subsequently  given  it,  of  Fort  Independence. 
Finally,  he  was  shipped  back  to  England.  In  the  mean  time,  old 
Simon  Bradstreet,  in  his  eighty-seventh  year,  who,  fifty-nine  years 
before  came  over  with  Winthrop,  and  was  the  first  secretary  and 
the  last  governor  under  the  First  Charter  in  Massachusetts,  was 
recalled  to  his  place  by  an  insurgent  people,  and  for  three  more 
years  affairs  were  administered  as  in  the  days  of  the  old  charter. 
The  bold  procedure  was  acquiesced  in  at  home  and  abroad,  no 
one  was  called  to  account  for  it,  and  Andros  got  no  redress. 
The  First  Charter  history  of  Massachusetts  thus  closed  in  glory. 
The  study  of  these  records  will  help  us  avoid  errors  into  which 
the  Fathers  of  Massachusetts  were  led.  A  large  department 
of  their  legislation,  that  embracing  sumptuary  laws  and  police 
regulations,  is  now  considered  as  passing  beyond  the  bounda 
ries  of  the  legitimate  power  of  government,  and  trenching  upon 
the  rights  of  private  life,  and  the  domain  of  personal  freedom. 
The  severities  of  their  penal  code  are  condemned  by  the  sen 
timents  of  a  more  enlightened  age ;  but,  in  reference  to  this 
point,  allowance  must  be  made  for  their  circumstances.  In  the 
prevention  and  punishment  of  crime,  they  had  not  what  we 
possess  in  philanthropic,  reformatory,  and  penitentiary  estab 
lishments. 


UNDER   ITS   FIRST   CHARTER.  249 

In  initiating  and  organizing  a  government,  errors  were  com 
mitted,  but  they  were  readily  rectified  when  discovered.  In 
1636  and  1637,  the  General  Court  was  led  into  a  measure  sin 
gularly  in  conflict  with  its  usual  policy  and  the  spirit  of  the 
people  :  a  council  for  life  was  established,  and  Winthrop, 
Dudley,  and  Endicott  elected  to  it.  The  prevalence  of  sounder 
views  prevented  any  further  proceedings,  and  the  plan  was 
dropped. 

There  is  one  branch  of  their  administration  exposed  especially 
to  stricture,  and  universally  condemned,  at  the  present  day, 
which  must  not  be  overlooked ;  for  their  views  and  designs  in 
relation  to  it  are  proved  to  have  been  fallacious  and  impracti 
cable.  They  came  here  with  a  purpose  most  dear  to  their 
hearts,  of  establishing  and  enjoying  a  system  of  society  and 
government  in  which  all  would  be  of  one  mind,  in  the  reception 
of  a  particular  theological  creed  and  ecclesiastical  order.  This 
did  not,  in  their  view,  involve  any  violation  of  the  rights  of  con 
science.  The  New  World,  as  they  reasoned,  could  accommodate 
persons  of  all  persuasions.  They  had  purchased  and  planted 
their  territory,  and  cherished  the  hope  of  enjoying  it  in  peace 
and  unity.  This  idea  had  captivated  their  imaginations.  The 
agitations  and  dissensions  arising  from  conflicting  religious 
theories  were  distasteful  to  their  feelings.  They  had  left  the  Old 
World  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  thought  it  no  wrong  to  ask  those 
who  desired  to  establish  and  propagate  opinions  in  conflict  with 
theirs,  as  there  was  room  enough  for  all,  to  go  elsewhere.  To 
preserver  peace,  tranquillity,  and  order,  they  undertook  to  keep 
out  Anabaptists,  Antinomians,  and  Quakers.  It  was  an  error 
to  expect  to  succeed  in  such  a  policy,  and  the  attempt  involved 
them  in  the  follies  and  mischiefs  of  intolerance  and  persecution. 
As  followers  of  the  divine  Word,  and  disciples  of  the  Great 
Teacher,  they  ought  to  have  known  better.  Tares  will  spring 
up  with  the  wheat.  LET  THEM  BOTH  GROW  TOGETHER  UNTIL  THE 
HARVEST.  The  Lord  of  ;the  harvest,  and  he  alone,  has  the  right 
or  the  power  to  separate  them.  In  this,  then,  —  it  cannot  too 
emphatically  be  affirmed,  —  the  founders  of  Massachusetts 
were  in  the  wrong,  and  their  example  is  to  be  held  up  as  a 
warning.  For  having  pursued  the  opposite  policy,  in  opening 
a  shelter  for  all  sorts  of  opinions,  and  patiently  enduring  the 


250  RECORDS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

turmoil  of  wrangling  bigots  and  fanatical  enthusiasts,  rather  than 
suffer  the  hand  of  the  civil  power  to  be  lifted  against  them,  the 
name  of  Roger  Williams  will  be  illustrious,  and  the  peculiar 
honor  of  Rhode  Island  secure  for  ever. 

At  the  very  first  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Court, 
after  the  transfer  of  the  charter,  at  which  a  governor  and  assist- 

^  ants  were  chosen,  on  the  18th  of  May,  1631,  it  was  voted,  that 
/  "  no"  man  shall  be  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  this  body-politic, 

"Tttit  such  as  are  members  of  some  of  the  churches  within  the 
limits  of  the*  same;"  and  they  suffered  no  churches  to  be 
gathered,  but  such  as  were  sound  in  doctrine,  according  to  the 
estimation  of  the  General  Court.  Admitting  that  the  policy 
announced  in  this  vote  was  erroneous,  and  rejoicing,  as  we  all 
do,  that%it  has  long  ago  been  repudiated,  it  is  but  fair  to  give 
heed  to  what  may  be  offered  in  its  palliation.  It  was,  in  part, 
suggested  by  their  peculiar  situation.  It  was  necessary,  by  all 
means,  to  keep  their  government  from  falling  into  the  hands  of 
persons  who  might  appear  among  them  with  a  disposition  to 
win  favor  from  the  parties  hostile  to  them  around  the  royal 
court ;  and  this  seemed  the  most  sure  way  to  keep  them  out. 
Further,  in  spite  of  all  precautions  to  prevent  it,  here,  as  in  all 
first  settlements,  there  were  individuals  of  loose  and  profligate 
lives,  wholly  unfit  to  share  in  the  government.  It  was  an  effect 
ual  bar  against  them.  And,  after  all,  it  must  be  conceded,  that 
there  was  one  good  feature  in  it.  It  ignored  the  distinction 
between  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  bond  and  free;  and  was, 
as  far  as  it  went,  in  this  view,  a  liberal  measure.  It  is  due  to 
the  Church,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  to  give  it  the  credit,  in 
every  age  and  every  communion,  whatever  other  barriers  it  has 
raised,  of  having  welcomed  to  its  bosom  persons  of  all  ranks  and 
races,  without  reference  to  their  position  in  the  scale  of  society. 
It  has  been  in  advance  of  the  State  in  this  particular. 

While  we  condemn  the  policy  of  the  Fathers  in  reference  to 
religious  opinions,  we  must  not  charge  them  with  having  con 
templated  an  established  religion  as  a  part  of  the  frame  of  their 
government.  To  that  they  were  utterly  opposed.  f~They  often, 
it  is  true,  sought  the  advice  of  the  ministers  concerning  public 
affairs,  appreciating  their  learning  and  wisdom,  but  never  allowed 
them  to  participate  in  the  government.  They  went  further  in 


UNDER  ITS   FIRST  CHARTER.  251 

this  respect  than  we  do.  No  minister,  or  church  officer  of  any 
kind,  not  even  a  lay-elder,  was  permitted  to  hold  any  legislative, 
political,  or  civil  appointment. 

Increase  Nowell,  an  original  patentee  and  assistant,  belong 
ing  to  a  high  family  at  home,  who  came  over  with  the  charter, 
was  a  man  of  eminent  gifts  and  graces,  and  all  his  life  in  dis 
tinguished  public  employment.  When  the  church  at  Charles- 
town  was  planted,  he  was  chosen  a  ruling  or  lay  elder,  and 
acted  as  such.  The  question  was  raised,  whether  he,  being  a 
magistrate,  could  hold  office  in  a  church.  It  was  decided  that 
he  could  not,  and  Nowell  laid  down  his  eldership. 

Samuel  Sharp  was  probably  one  of  the  best  educated  men  of 
the  first  age  of  the  colony.  Bred  to  learning  during  his  youth,  and 
transferred  at  opening  manhood  to  business  as  a  merchant,  he 
continued  through  life  to  cultivate  his  mind  and  gratify  his  literary 
tastes.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  proficient  also  in  military  knowl 
edge,  as  he  was  intrusted,  from  the  first,  with  all  that  related  to 
engineering,  fortification,  and  ordnance,  in  the  plantation.  Col 
onial  enterprise  seems  to  have  particularly  attracted  his  interest. 
He  was  one  of  the  company  in  London  which  managed  the  first 
settlement  at  Plymouth.  The  Records  of  the  Massachusetts 
Company  show  the  active  part  he  took  in  its  affairs,  and  the 
extent  to  which  it  availed  itself  of  his  business  efficiency. 
When  Endicott  was  elected  temporary  local  governor,  April  30, 
1629,  he  divided  the  vote  with  him,  was  appointed  one  of  his 
council,  and  authorized,  in  conjunction  with  Samuel  Skelton, 
the  first  pastor  of  the  Salem  church,  in  the  event  of  Endicott's 
death,  to  assume  the  government  of  the  plantation.  Although 
Matthew  Cradock  never  came  to  America  in  person,  he  took  lands, 
and  shipped  over  successive  cargoes  of  provisions,  live  stock, 
and  other  needful  arti'cles,  selecting  suitable  persons  to  look  out 
for  their  disbursement  and  distribution.  Sharp  was  his  chief 
agent,  and  enjoyed  his  full  confidence.  Henry  Haughton  was 
also  concerned  in  the  management  of  Cradock's  affairs.  The 
latter,  at  the  formation  of  the  Salem  church,  was  elected  its  lay- 
elder;  but,  dying  a  few  months  afterwards,  Sharp  was  chosen  to 
his  place,  which  he  filled  to  his  death  in  1656.  In  consequence 
of  holding  this  office,  the  great  talents  and  capacity  of  Elder 
Sharp  were  lost  to  the  civil  service  of  the  colony.  His  name, 


252  RECORDS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

although  consecrated  by  the  memory  of  his  various  usefulness, 
Christian  learning,  and  eminent  piety,  is  seen  no  more  on  its 
records,  except  as  having,  with  Endicott  and  others,  been  bound 
over 'to  answer  before  the  General  Court,  as  representatives  of 
the  Salem  church,  for  having  denounced  the  proceedings  of  the 
Court  against  its  minister,  Roger  Williams. 

These  instances  sufficiently  show  how  thoroughly  the  policy 
was  carried  out  of  not  allowing  any  officers  whatever  of  a  church 
to  hold  political  or  civil  appointments,  or  in  any  degree  or  shape 
to  have  share  in  the  government. 

The  Fathers  of  Massachusetts  have  been  ridiculed  for  the  re 
spect  in  which  they  held  the  Hebrew  polity,  and  for  bringing  the 
authority  of  the  Scriptures,  particularly  of  the  Old  Testament, 
to  corroborate  their  legislation.  But  it  may  be  asked,  Where  else 
could  they  have  gone  ?  Not  surely  to  precedents  drawn  from 
ancient  despotisms,  or  European  monarchies.  References  to  the 
statutes  of  the  Pentateuch  were  more  to  their  purpose,  and  justly 
carried  greater  weight,  than  to  feudal  rolls  of  parliaments,  basely 
obsequious  to  Tudors  and  Stuarts.  The  Hebrew  government,  for 
^the  ends  it  was  designed  to  accomplish,  was  the  most  perfect  ever 
contrived.  It  left  a  deeper  imprint  on  national  character  than 
any  government  ever  has.  It  gave  to  a  people  a  national  life 
which  no  power  on  earth  has  been  able  to  extinguish.  Subjuga 
tion,  dispersion,  and  the  scorn,  hate,  and  persecution  of  all  nations 
for  two  thousand  years,  have  made  no  impression  on  it.  The 
Jewish  race  has  survived  it  all.  In  our  day  the  proudest  mon- 
archs  are  bowing  before  its  banking-houses,  and  it  affords  lead 
ing  minds  to  parliaments  and  cabinets.  Its  perpetuity,  as  a 
distinct  people,  although  scattered  everywhere,  and  everywhere 
trodden  down  for  ages,  is  the  marvel  of  the  world's  history,  and 
attests  the  greatness  of  Moses  as  a  lawgiver. 

The  Massachusetts  statesmen  of  the  first  age  did  not  follow 
indiscriminately  the  details  of  the  Jewish  system;  but,  as  the 
Records  show,  sought  to  discover  and  obey  the  requirements  of 
eternal  moral  laws.  They  acted,  in  their  secular  administration, 
upon  principles  that  will  stand  the  test  of  all  time;  but  found 
gratification  and  confirmation  in  the  ancient  Scriptures.  It  is 
wonderful  to  what  an  extent  they  were  able  to  avail  themselves 
of  this  resource.  Any  one  who  verifies,  collates,  and  examines 


UNDER  ITS   FIRST   CHARTER.  253 

their  references  to  the  events,  characters,  and  expressions  of  Holy 
Writ,  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  apposite  they  are,  and  what  a 
mine  was  thus  opened.  Verily,  the  volume  containing  the  most 
ancient  literature  of  the  world,  is  worthy  of  being  called  the 
Book  of  Books.  Not  wholly  unaware  of  the  disparagement,  in 
which  some  have  indulged,  of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures,  I 
am  constrained  to  say,  that  the  longer  I  live,  and  the  more  I  pon 
der  them,  the  profounder  is  my  admiration  and  veneration  of  the 
unapproached  dignity  and  simplicity  of  style  of  their  historical 
and  narrative  passages,  and  of  the  beauty,  splendor,  and  sublimity 
of  the  conceptions  and  imagery  that  glorify  their  strains  of  elo 
quence,  poetry,  and  prophecy,  breathing  an  influence  that 
expands  and  lifts  up  the  soul,  and  is  felt  to  be  inspiration. 

In  support  of  what  I  have  said,  in  reference  to  the  legislation 
of  the  first  colonial  age,  allow  me  to  fall  back  upon  the  judgment 
of  one  whose  name  is  among  the  ornaments  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Historical  Society,  and  the  memory  of  whose  genius  and 
scholarship  is  fresh  in  the  hearts  of  the  older  members.  Francis 
Galley  Gray,  in  a  notice  of  the  compendium,  made  in  1641,  of 
the  laws  of  the  Massachusetts  colony,  known  as  the  "  Body  of 
Liberties,"1  says, — 

"  Our  ancestors,  instead  of  deducing  all  their  laws  from  the  Books  of 
Moses,  established,  at  the  outset,  a  code  of  fundamental  principles,  which, 
taken  as  a  whole,  for  wisdom,  equity,  adaptation  to  the  wants  of  their 
community,  and  a  liberality  of  sentiment  superior  to  the  age  in  which  it 
was  written,  may  fearlessly  challenge  comparison  with  any  similar  pro 
duction,  from  Magna  Charta  itself,  to  the  latest  Bill  of  Rights  that  has 
been  put  forth  in  Europe  or  America." 

The  early  lawgivers  of  Massachusetts  were,  indeed,  in  advance 
of  their  times.  Before  we  ridicule  or  reproach  their  legislation, 
it  becomes  us  to  see  to  it  that  those  whom  we  choose  to  make 
and  administer  law,  are  equally  in  advance  of  our  times. 

The  just  formation  of  a  body-politic  which  these  Records  have 
now  been  used  to  illustrate,  demands  attention  in  our  day.  Much 
remains  to  be  done,  even  in  the  most  advanced  and  enlightened 
nations.  Much  is  being  done.  All  the  light  that  can  be  ob 
tained  is  needed.  Men  everywhere  are  crying  out  for  it.  Agita- 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  vol.  viii.  Third  Series,  p.  191. 


254  RECORDS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

tion  and  change  rule  the  hour.  The  future  is  felt  to  be  subject  to 
unknown  and  indeterminable  influences,  and  to  depend  upon  the 
wills  or  fortunes  or  lives  of  individuals,  or  the  fluctuating  con 
flicts  of  parties.  Who  can  predict  what  is  in  store  for  Spain, 
France,  Italy,  the  German  States,  or  the  northern  kingdoms  of 
Europe  ?  The  current  of  events  seems  to  be  working  radical 
changes  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  the  dependencies  of 
that  empire.  Although,  in  many  respects  the  most  advanced 
of  the  old  forms  of  political  civilization,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  it  is  doomed  to  pass  through  momentous  crises ;  for  the 
whole  structure  of  its  constitutional  system  rests  upon  fictions 
that  must  give  way,  sooner  or  later,  to  truth  and  right.  It 
assumes  that  there  are  three  estates  essential  to  the  composition 
of  a  nation,  —  king,  lords,  and  commons.  The  last  only  has  a 
legitimate  and  permanent  existence.'  The  people  are  the  whole 
of  a  country,  so  far  as  its  government  is  Concerned,  and  must 
finally  vindicate  their  rightful  claim  to  power^ 

The  framers  of  the  Constitution  of  the-United  States  are 
justly  regarded  as  among  the  wisest  statesmen  of  all  times ;  but 
they  failed,  in  some  points,  in  contriving  their  scheme  of  govern 
ment,  to  estimate  aright  the  action  of  the  principles  of  human 
nature,  or  calculate  their  forces.  They  did  not  foresee  the  opera 
tion  or  even  the  existence  of  what  are  called  national  parties. 
The  arrangement  they  made  for  the  election  of  a  President  was 
soon  found  utterly  impracticable  for  the  end  designed.  The 
Amendment  of  1803,  introducing  the  plan  that  has  been  subse 
quently  followed,  was  only  carried  by  the  decision  of  the  then 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  Nathaniel  Macon,  of 
North  Carolina,  who  claimed  the  right,  since  conceded,  of  the 
presiding  officer  of  that  body,  to  vote  when  the  House  is  not 
equally  divided.  His  vote  made  the  requisite  two-thirds. 

Indications  are  appearing  that  some  further  change  may  be 
demanded.  The  intermediate  machinery  of  Electors  is  justly 
criticised  ;  but  great  difficulty  will  be  experienced,  in  contriving  in 
any  other  way,  to  preserve  the  rights  of  the  smaller  States.  So, 
also,  on  the  elementary  subject  of  suffrage,  great  enlargements 
have  been  recently  made,  but  others  are  demanded.  It  is,  indeed, 
evident  that  questions  are  impending  that  reach  the  foundations 
of  political  science.  Let  them  be  met,  not  with  ridicule  or 


UNDER   ITS   FIRST   CHARTER.  255 

reproach,  but  with  intelligence  and  fairness.  Having  been 
brought  to  a  higher  stand-point,  with  a  wider  field  of  view  than 
the  Fathers,  we  ought  to  have  a  more  liberal  spirit ;  but  for  in 
tegrity  of  purpose,  and  independence  of  authority,  for  carefulness 
in  deliberation,  and  firmness  and  courage  in  action,  we  may  well 
study  their  example. 

Pardon  me  for  detaining  you  a  moment  longer,  while  sum 
marily  delineating  the  spectacle  the  early  records  of  Massachu 
setts  present. 

Here,  on  a  clear  field,  unoccupied  by  any  organized  society, 
with  no  pre-existent  institutions  to  cumber  the  ground,  but  all  as 
fresh  as  if  never  trodden  by  man  before,  the  experiment  of  plant 
ing  and  constructing  a  civil  government  was  fairly  worked  out. 
No  external  power  was  suffered  to  interfere,  and  no  foreign 
precedents  allowed  to  claim  authority ;  no  closet  statesman  or 
fanciful  theorist  formed  the  scheme ;  no  lordly  proprietor,  or  dis 
tant  corporation,  or  board  of  trade,  directors,  or  officials  of  any 
kind,  dictated.  The  whole  procedure  was  left,  without  let  or 
hindrance,  suggestion  or  influence,  from  any  outside  quarter,  to 
the  people  on  the  spot.  They  were  a  select  people  for  the  work  ;  — 
intelligent,  thoughtful,  brave,  and  devout.  They  were  settled  in 
families,  and  comprised  all  the  elements  of  a  State.  Although 
emigrants  from  the  Old  World,  they  trailed  none  of  its  arbitrary, 
outgrown  institutions  or  usages  after  them.  Conversant  with 
all  the  learning  of  ancient  and  feudal  forms,  they  applied  none 
of  it  here.  Having  a  new  country  to  dwell  in,  they  resolved  to 
establish  nothing  but  what  facts,  as  they  occurred,  should  prove 
to  be  necessary  or  desirable.  Oglethorpe  planned  a  social  system 
for  Georgia,  John  Locke  drafted  a  contrivance  of  government  for 
the  Carolinas,  Lord  Baltimore  superintended  Maryland,  William 
Penn  Pennsylvania,  and  other  proprietorsjind  patrons  their  several 
settlements.  Not  so  in  Massachusetts  :  Vthe  Fathers  of  this  colony 
followed  no  far-off  light  ;  they  moved  o^lylTs  experience  opened 
the  way ;  they  tried  every  step  as  they  advanced,  indulged  in  no 
theories  or  speculations,  and  held  fast  only  what  was  found,  in 
their  view,  to  be  good,  and  thus  accomplished  the  great  end  of  a 
stable,  prosperous,  powerful,  and  permanent  commonwealth.  All 
the  essential  features  of  our  present  security  and  happiness  were 
stamped  into  the  fabric  of  society  during  the  period  of  the  First 
Charter. 


256  RECORDS   OP  MASSACHUSETTS. 

The  early  growth  of  Massachusetts  was  natural ;  and  the  ma 
tured  result  as  complete,  as  of  every  natural  growth ;  but,  unlike 
the  growths  of  nature  in  other  things,  there  was,  in  this,  no  ele 
ment  of  decay.  The  institutions  planted  during  our  first  fifty 
years  withstood  a  century  of  immediately  subsequent  provincial 
endurance ;  and  as  another  century  under  the  flag  of  our  Union  is 
approaching  its  completion,  they  are  striking  their  roots  deeper 
every  day.  The  foundation  here  laid  can  never  be  moved  ;  and 
we  owe  it  to  the  men  who  laid  it,  that,  in  education,  arts,  wealth, 
and  power,  we  hold  a  rank  second  to  none  in  the  Republic.  The 
path,  here  opened,  other  Colonies  and  States  have  travelled,  and 
all  must  travel,  to  reach  the  fruition  of  liberty,  order,  justice,  and 
the  rights  of  man. 

Of  the  grand  Epic,  Time  is  writing,  of  the  Regeneration  of 
Nations,  the  old  charter  history  of  Massachusetts  is  the  First 
Book. 


THE    MEDICAL    PROFESSION 
IN     MASSACHUSETTS. 


BY    OLIVER    WENDELL     HOLMES. 


17 


THE    MEDICAL    PROFESSION 
IN    MASSACHUSETTS. 


medical  history  of  eight  generations,  told  in  an  hour, 
-*•  must  be  in  many  parts  a  mere  outline.  The  details  I  shall 
give  will  relate  chiefly  to  the  first  century.  I  shall  only  indicate 
the  leading  occurrences,  with  the  more  prominent  names  of  the 
two  centuries  which  follow,  and  add  some  considerations  sug 
gested  by  the  facts  which  have  been  passed  in  review. 

A  geographer  who  was  asked  to  describe  the  tides  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay,  would  have  to  recognize  the  circumstance  that 
they  are  a  limited  manifestation  of  a  great  oceanic  movement. 
To  consider  them  apart  from  this,  would  be  to  localize  a  plane 
tary  phenomenon,  and  to  provincialize  a  law  of  the  universe. 
The  art  of  healing  in  Massachusetts  has  shared  more  or  less 
fully  and  readily  the  movement  which,  with  its  periods  of  ebb 
and  flow,  has  been  raising  its  level  from  age  to  age  throughout 
the  better  part  of  Christendom.  Its  practitioners  brought  with 
them  much  of  the  knowledge  and  many  of  the  errors  of  the 
Old  World ;  they  have  always  been  in  communication  with  its 
wisdom  and  its  folly  ;  it  is  not  without  interest  to  see  how  far 
the  new  conditions  in  which  they  found  themselves  have  been 
favorable  or  unfavorable  to  the  growth  of  sound  medical  knowl 
edge  and  practice. 

The  state  of  medicine  is  an  index  of  the  civilization  of  an  age 
and  country,  —  one  of  the  best,  perhaps,  by  which  it  can  be 
judged.  Surgery  invokes  the  aid  of  all  the  mechanical  arts. 
From  the  rude  violences  of  the  age  of  stone,  —  a  relic  of  which 
we  may  find  in  the  practice  of  Zipporah,  the  wife  of  Moses,1  — 

1  Exodus  iv.  25. 


260  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

to  the  delicate  operations  of  to-day  upon  patients  lulled  into 
temporary  insensibility,  is  a  progress  which  presupposes  a  skill 
in  metallurgy  and  in  the  labors  of  the  workshop  and  the  labora 
tory  it  has  taken  uncounted  generations  to  accumulate.  Before 
the  morphia  which  deadens  the  pain  of  neuralgia,  or  the  quinine 
which  arrests  the  fit  of  an  ague,  can  find  their  place  in  our 
pharmacies,  commerce  must  have  perfected  its  machinery,  and 
science  must  have  refined  its  processes,  through  periods  only  to 
be  counted  by  the  life  of  nations.  Before  the  means  which 
nature  and  art  have  put  in  the  hands  of  the  medical  practitioner 
can  be  fairly  brought  into  use,  the  prejudices  of  the  vulgar  must 
be  overcome,  the  intrusions  of  false  philosophy  must  be  fenced 
out,  and  the  partnership  with  the  priesthood  dissolved.  All  this 
implies  that  freedom  and  activity  of  thought  which  belong  only 
to  the  most  advanced  conditions  of  society;  and  the  progress 
towards  this  is  by  gradations  as  significant  of  wide-spread 
changes,  as  are  the  varying  states  of  the  barometer  of  far- 
extended  conditions  of  the  atmosphere. 

Apart,  then,  from  its  special  and  technical  interest,  my  subject 
has  a  meaning  which  gives  a  certain  importance,  and  even  dig 
nity,  to  details  in  themselves  trivial  and  almost  unworthy  of 
record.  A  medical  entry  in  Governor  Winthrop's  journal  may 
seem  at  first  sight  a  mere  curiosity ;  but,  rightly  interpreted,  it 
is  a  key  to  his  whole  system  of  belief  as  to  the  order  of  the 
universe  and  the  relations  between  man  and  his  Maker.  Nothing 
sheds  such  light  on  the  superstitions  of  an  age  as  the  prevailing 
interpretation  and  treatment  of  disease.  When  the  touch  of  a 
profligate  monarch  was  a  cure  for  one  of  the  most  inveterate  of 
maladies,  when  the  common  symptoms  of  hysteria  were  prayed 
over  as  marks  of  demoniacal  possession,  we  might  well  expect 
the  spiritual  realms  of  thought  to  be  peopled  with  still  stranger 
delusions. 

Let  us  go  before  the  Pilgrims  of  the  "  Mayflower,"  and  look 
at  the  shores  on  which  they  were  soon  to  land.  A  wasting  pesti 
lence  had  so  thinned  the  savage  tribes,  that  it  was  sometimes 
piously  interpreted  as  having  providentially  prepared  the  way 
for  the  feeble  band  of  exiles.  Cotton  Mather,  who,  next  to  the 
witches,  hated  the  "tawnies,"  "wild  beasts,"  "blood-hounds," 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  261 

"rattlesnakes,"  "infidels,"  as  in  different  places  he  calls  the 
unhappy  Aborigines,  describes  the  condition  of  things  in  his 
lively  way,  thus  :  — 

"  The  Indians  in  these  Parts  had  newly,  even  about  a  Year  or  Two 
before,  been  visited  with  such  a  prodigious  Pestilence ;  as  carried  away  not 
a  Tenth,  but  Nine  Parts  of  Ten  (yea  'tis  said  Nineteen  of  Twenty)  among 
them :  so  that  the  Woods  were  almost  cleared  of  those  pernicious  Crea 
tures  to  make  Room  for  a  better  Growth"  1 

What  this  pestilence  was  has  been  much  discussed.  It  is 
variously  mentioned  by  different  early  writers  as  "  the  plague," 
"  a  great  and  grievous  plague,"  "  a  sore  consumption,"  as 
attended  with  spots  which  left  unhealed  places  on  those  who 
recovered,  as  making  the  whole  surface  yellow  as  with  a  gar 
ment.2  Perhaps  no  disease  answers  all  these  conditions  so  well 
as  small-pox.  We  know  from  different  sources  what  frightful 
havoc  it  made  among  the  Indians  in  after  years,  —  in  1631,  for 
instance,  when  it  swept  away  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of 
whole  towns,3  and  in  1633.4  We  have  seen  a  whole  tribe,  the 
Mandans,  extirpated  by  it  in  our  own  day.  The  word  "  plague  " 
was  used  very  vaguely,  as  in  the  description  of  the  "  great  sick 
ness  "  found  among  the  Indians  by  the  expedition  of  1622.5 
This  same  great  sickness  could  hardly  have  been  yellow  fever, 
as  it  occurred  in  the  month  of  November.  I  cannot  think, 
therefore,  that  either  the  scourge  of  the  East  or  our  Southern 
malarial  pestilence  was  the  disease  that  wasted  the  Indians. 
As  for  the  yellowness  like  a  garment,  that  is  too  familiar  to  the 
eyes  of  all  who  have  ever  looked  on  the  hideous  mask  of  con 
fluent  variola. 

Without  the  presence  or  the  fear  of  these  exotic  maladies,  the 
forlorn  voyagers  of  the  u  Mayflower  "  had  sickness  enough  to 
contend  with.  At  their  first  landing  at  Cape  Cod,  gaunt  and 
hungry  and  longing  for  fresh  food,  they  found  upon  the  sandy 
shore  "  great  muscles,  and  very  fat  and  full  of  sea-pearl."  Sailors 

1  Magnalia,  book  i.  chap.  2. 

2  Young,  Chron.  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  183,  note. 

3  Holmes's  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  211,  note. 

*  Young,  Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,  p.  386. 
6  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  302. 


262  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

and  passengers  indulged  in  the  treacherous  delicacy,  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  sea-clam  ;  and  found  that  these  mollusks, 
like  the  shell  the  poet  tells  of,  remembered  their  august  abode, 
and  treated  the  way-worn  adventurers  to  a  gastric  reminiscence 
of  the  heaving  billows.  In  the  mean  time,  it  blew  and  snowed 
and  froze.1  The  water  turned  to  ice  on  their  clothes,  and  made 
them  many  times  like  coats  of  iron.  Edward  Tilley  had  like  to 
have  "  sounded  "  with  cold.  The  gunner,  too,  was  sick  unto 
death,  but  "  hope  of  trucking  "  kept  him  on  his  feet,  —  a  Yankee, 
it  should  seem,  when  he  first  touched  the  shore  of  New  England. 
Most,  if  not  all,  got  colds  and  coughs,  which  afterwards  turned 
to  scurvy,  whereof  many  died.2 

How  can  we  wonder  that  the  crowded  and  tempest-tossed 
voyagers,  many  of  them  already  suffering,  should  have  fallen 
before  the  trials  of  the  first  winter  in  Plymouth  ?  Their  imper 
fect  shelter,  their  insufficient  supply  of  bread,  their  salted  food, 
now  in  unwholesome  condition,  account  too  well  for  the  diseases 
and  the  mortality  that  marked  this  first  dreadful  season ;  weak 
ness,  swelling  of  the  limbs,  and  other  signs  of  scurvy,  betrayed  the 
want  of  proper  nourishment  and  protection  from  the  elements. 
In  December  six  of  their  number  died,  in  January  eight,  in  Feb 
ruary  seventeen,  in  March  thirteen.  With  the  advance  of  spring 
the  mortality  diminished,  the  sick  and  lame  began  to  recover,  and 
the  colonists,  saddened  but  not  disheartened,  applied  themselves 
to  the  labors  of  the  opening  year.3 

One  of  the  most  pressing  needs  of  the  early  colonists  must 
have  been  that  of  physicians  and  surgeons.  In  Mr.  Savage's 
remarkable  Genealogical  Dictionary  of  the  first  settlers  who 
came  over  before  1692  and  their  descendants  to  the  third  genera 
tion,  I  find  scattered  through  the  four  crowded  volumes  the  names 
of  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  medical  practitioners.  Of  these, 
twelve,  and  probably  many  more,  practised  surgery ;  three  were 
barber-surgeons.  A  little  incident  throws  a  glimmer  from  the 
dark  lantern  of  memory  upon  William  Dinely,  one  of  these  prac 
titioners  with  the  razor  and  the  lancet.  He  was  lost  between 
Boston  and  Roxbury  in  a  violent  tempest  of  wind  and  snow ; 
ten  days  afterwards  a  son  was  born  to  his  widow,  and  with  a 
i  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  119.  2  ft.,  pp.  138,  151.  8  Ib.,  p.  198. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  263 

touch  of  homely  sentiment,  I  had  almost  said  poetry,  they  called 
the  little  creature  "  Fathergone"  Dinely.  Six  or  seven,  probably  a 
larger  number,  were  ministers  as  well  as  physicians,  one  of  whom, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  took  to  drink  and  tumbled  into  the  Connecticut 
River,  and  so  ended.  One  was  not  only  doctor,  but  also  school 
master  and  poet.  One  practised  medicine  and  kept  a  tavern. 
One  was  a  butcher,  but  calls  himself  a  surgeon  in  his  will,  a 
union  of  callings  which  suggests  an  obvious  pleasantry.  One 
female  practitioner,  employed  by  her  own  sex,  —  Ann  Moore,  — 
was  the  precursor  of  that  intrepid  sisterhood  whose  cause  it  has 
long  been  my  pleasure  and  privilege  to  advocate  on  all  fitting 
occasions. 

Outside  of  this  list  I  must  place  the  name  of  Thomas  Wilkin 
son,  who  was  complained  of,  in  1676,  for  practising  contrary  to 
law. 

Many  names  in  the  catalogue  of  these  early  physicians  have 
been  associated,  in  later  periods,  with  the  practice  of  the  profes 
sion, —  among  them,  Boylston,  Clark,  Danforth,  Homan,  Jeffrey, 
Kittredge,  Oliver,  Peaslee,  Randall,  Shattuck,  Thacher,  Welling 
ton,  Williams,  Woodward.  Teuton  was  a  Huguenot,  Burchsted  a 
German  from  Silesia,  Lunerus  a  German  or  a  Pole ;  "  Pighogg 
Churrergeon,"  I  hope,  for  the  honor  of  the  profession,  was  only 
Peacock  disguised  under  this  alias,  which  would  not,  I  fear,  prove 
very  attractive  to  patients. 

What  doctrines  and  practice  were  these  colonists  likely  to 
bring  with  them  ? 

Two  principal  schools  of  medical  practice  prevailed  in  the  Old 
World,  during  the  greater  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The 
first  held  to  the  old  methods  of  Galen :  its  theory  was  that 
the  body,  the  microcosm,  like  the  macrocosm,  was  made  up  of  the 
four  elements  —  fire,  air,  water,  earth;  having  respectively  the 
qualities  hot,  dry,  moist,  cold.  The  body  was  to  be  preserved  in 
health  by  keeping  each  of  these  qualities  in  its  natural  propor 
tion  ;  heat,  by  the  proper  temperature ;  moisture,  by  the  due 
amount  of  fluid ;  and  so  as  to  the  rest.  Diseases  which  arose 
from  excess  of  heat  were  to  be  attacked  by  cooling  remedies ; 
those  from  excess  of  cold,  by  heating  ones ;  and  so  of  the  other 
derangements  of  balance.  This  was  truly  the  principle  of  con- 


264  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

traria  contrariis,  which  ill-informed  persons  have  attempted  to 
make  out  to  be  the  general  doctrine  of  medicine,  whereas  there 
is  no  general  dogma  other  than  this :  disease  is  to  be  treated  by 
any  thing  that  is  proved  to  cure  it.  The  means  the  Galenist 
employed  were  chiefly  diet  and  vegetable  remedies,  with  the  use 
of  the  lancet  and  other  depleting  agents.  He  attributed  the  four 
fundamental  qualities  to  different  vegetables,  in  four  different 
degrees  ;  thus  chicory  was  cold  in  the  fourth  degree,  pepper  was 
hot  in  the  fourth,  endive  was  cold  and  dry  in  the  second,  and 
bitter  almonds  were  hot  in  the  first  and  dry  in  the  second  degree. 
When  we  say  "  cool  as  a  cucumber,"  we  are  talking  Galenism. 
The  seeds  of  that  vegetable  ranked  as  one  of  "  the  four  greater 
cold  seeds "  of  this  system.  Galenism  prevailed  mostly  in  the 
south  of  Europe  and  France.  The  readers  of  Moliere  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  recalling  some  of  its  favorite  modes  of  treatment, 
and  the  abundant  mirth  he  extracted  from  them. 

These  Galenists  were  what  we  should  call  "  herb-doctors  "  to 
day.  Their  insignificant  infusions  lost  credit  after  a  time;  their 
absurdly  complicated  mixtures  excited  contempt,  and  their 
nauseous  prescriptions  provoked  loathing  and  disgust.  A  sim 
pler  and  bolder  practice  found  welcome  in  Germany,  depending 
chiefly  on  mineral  remedies,  mercury,  antimony,  sulphur,  arsenic, 
and  the  use,  sometimes  the  secret  use,  of  opium.  Whatever  we 
think  of  Paracelsus,  the  chief  agent  in  the  introduction  of  these 
remedies,  and  whatever  limits  we  may  assign  to  the  use  of  these 
long-trusted  mineral  drugs,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  chemi 
cal  school,  as  it  was  called,  did  a  great  deal  towards  the  expurga 
tion  of  the  old,  overloaded,  and  repulsive  pharmacopeia.  We 
shall  find  evidence  in  the  practice  of  our  New-England  physicians 
of  the  first  century,  that  they  often  employed  chemical  remedies, 
and  that,  by  the  early  part  of  the  following  century,  their  chief 
trust  was  in  the  few  simple,  potent  drugs  of  Paracelsus. 

We  have  seen  that  many  of  the  practitioners  of  medicine, 
during  the  first  century  of  New  England,  were  clergymen.  This 
relation  between  medicine  and  theology  has  existed  from  a  very 
early  period ;  from  the  Egyptian  priest  to  the  Indian  medicine 
man,  the  alliance  has  been  maintained  in  one  form  or  another. 
The  partnership  was  very  common  among  our  British  ancestors. 
Mr.  Ward,  the  Vicar  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  himself  a  notable 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  265 

example  of  the  union   of    the  two  characters,  writing    about 
1660,  says, — 

"  The  Saxons  had  their  blood-letters,  but  under  the  Normans  physicke 
begunne  in  England  ;  300  years  agoe  itt  was  not  a  distinct  profession  by 
itself,  but  practised  by  men  in  orders,  witness  Nicholas  de  Tern  ham,  the 
chief  English  physician  and  Bishop  of  Durham ;  Hugh  of  Everham,  a 
physician  and  cardinal ;  Grysant,  physician  and  pope ;  John  Chambers, 
Dr.  of  Physick,  was  the  first  bishop  of  Peterborough ;  Paul  Bush,  a 
bachelor  of  divinitie  in  Oxford,  was  a  man  well  read  in  physick  as  well  as 
divinitie,  he  was  the  first  bishop  of  Bristol.1 

"  Again  in  King  Richard  the  Second's  time  physicians  and  divines  were 
not  distinct  professions  ;  for  one  Tydeman,  Bishop  of  Landaph  and  Wor 
cester,  was  physician  to  King  Richard  the  Second."  2 

This  alliance  may  have  had  its  share  in  creating  and  keeping 
up  the  many  superstitions  which  have  figured  so  largely  in  the 
history  of  medicine.  It  is  curious  to  see  that  a  medical  work 
left  in  manuscript  by  the  Rev.  Cotton  Mather,  and  hereafter  to  be 
referred  to,  is  running  over  with  follies  and  superstitious  fancies ; 
while  his  contemporary  and  fellow-townsman,  William  Douglass, 
relied  on  the  same  few  simple  remedies  which,  through  Dr. 
Edward  Holyoke  and  Dr.  James  Jackson,  have  come  down  to  our 
own  time,  as  the  most  important  articles  of  the  materia 
medica. 

Let  us  now  take  a  general  glance  at  some  of  the  conditions 
of  the  early  settlers;  and  first,  as  to  the  healthfulness  of  the 
climate.  The  mortality  of  the  season  that  followed  the  landing 
of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth  has  been  sufficiently  accounted  for. 
After  this,  the  colonists  seem  to  have  found  the  new  country 
agreeing  very  well  with  their  English  constitutions.  Its  clear 
air  is  the  subject  of  eulogy.  Its  dainty  springs  of  sweet  water 
are  praised  not  only  by  Higginson  and  Wood,  but  even  the 
mischievous  Morton  says,  that  for  its  delicate  waters  Canaan 
came  not  near  this  country.3  There  is  a  tendency  to  dilate  on 
these  simple  blessings,  which  reminds  one  a  little  of  the  Mar 
chioness  in  Dickens's  story,  with  her  orange-peel-and-water 
beverage.  Still  more  does  one  feel  the  warmth  of  coloring,  — 

1  Diary  of  the  Rev.  John  Ward,  A.M.,  p.  117.    London,  1839. 

2  Ib.,  p.  160.  3  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  129,  note. 


266  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

such  as  we  expect  from  converts  to  a  new  faith,  and  settlers 
who  want  to  entice  others  over  to  their  clearings,  —  when  Win- 
slow  speaks  in  1621,  of  "  abundance  of  roses,  white,  red,  and 
damask;  single,  but  very  sweet  indeed."1  Most  of  all,  however, 
when,  in  the  same  connection,  he  says,  "  Here  are  grapes  white 
and  red,  and  very  sweet  and  strong  also."  This  of  our  wild 
grape,  a  little  vegetable  Indian,  which  scalps  a  civilized  man's 
mouth,  as  his  animal  representative  scalps  his  cranium.  But 
there  is  something  quite  charming  in  Winslow's  picture  of  the 
luxury  in  which  they  are  living.  Lobsters,  oysters,  eels,  muscles, 
fish,  and  fowl,  delicious  fruit,  including  the  grapes  aforesaid, — 
if  they  only  had  "  kine,  horses,  and  sheep,"  he  makes  no  question 
but  men  would  live  as  contented  here,  as  in  any  part  of  the 
world.  We  cannot  help  admiring  the  way  in  which  they  took 
their  trials,  and  made  the  most  of  their  blessings. 

"  And  how  Content  they  were,"  says  Cotton  Mather,  "  when  an  Honest 
Man,  as  I  have  heard,  inviting  his  Friends  to  a  Dish  of  Clams,  at  the 
Table  gave  Thanks  to  Heaven,  who  had  given  them  to  suck  the  abundance 
of  the  Seas,  and  of  the  Treasures  hid  in  the  Sands  !  " 

Strangely  enough,  as  it  would  seem,  except  for  this  buoyant 
determination  to  make  the  best  of  every  thing,  they  hardly  appear 
to  recognize  the  difference  of  the  climate  from  that  which  they 
had  left.  After  almost  three  years'  experience,  Win  slow  says,  he 
can  scarce  distinguish  New  England  from  Old  England,  in  re 
spect  of  heat  and  cold,  frost,  snow,  rain,  winds,  &c.  The  winter, 
he  thinks  (if  there  is  a  difference),  is  sharper  and  longer;  but  yet 
he  may  be  deceived  by  the  want  of  the  comforts  he  enjoyed  at 
home.  He  cannot  conceive  any  climate  to  agree  better  with  the 
constitution  of  the  English,  not  being  oppressed  with  extremity 
of  heats,  nor  nipped  by  biting  cold :  — 

"  By  which  means,  blessed  be  God,  we  enjoy  our  health,  notwithstand 
ing  those  difficulties  we  have  undergone,  in  such  a  measure  as  would  have 
been  admired,  if  we  had  lived  in  England  with  the  like  means."3 

Edward  Johnson,  after  mentioning  the  shifts  to  which  they 
were  put  for  food,  says,  — 

"  And  yet,  methinks,  our  children  are  as  cheerful,  fat,  and  lusty,  with 

l  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  234.  2  Mngnalia,  book  i.  chap.  5. 

3  Chron.  of  the  Pilgrims,  369,  370. 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  267 

feeding  upon  those  muscles,  clams,  and  other  fish,  as  they  were  in  Eng 
land  with  their  fill  of  bread." l 

Higginson,  himself  a  dyspeptic,  "  continually  in  physic,"  as  he 
says,  and  accustomed  to  dress  in  thick  clothing,  and  to  comfort 
his  stomach  with  drink  that  was  "  both  strong  and  stale," 2  — 
the  "  jolly  good  ale  and  old,"  I  suppose,  of  free  and  easy  Bishop 
Still's  song,  —  found  that  he  both  could  and  did  oftentimes  drink 
New-England  water  very  well,  —  which  he  seems  to  look  upon 
as  a  remarkable  feat.  He  could  go  as  light-clad  as  any,  too, 
with  only  a  light  stuff  cassock  upon  his  shirt,  and  stuff  breeches 
without  linings.  Two  of  his  children  were  sickly  :  one  —  little 
misshapen  Mary — died  on  the  passage,  and,  in  her  father's 
words,  "  was  the  first  in  our  ship  that  was  buried  in  the  bowels 
of  the  great  Atlantic  sea ;  " 3  the  other,  who  had  been  "  most 
lamentably  handled  "  by  disease,  recovered  almost  entirely  "  by 
the  very  wholesomeness  of  the  air,  altering,  digesting,  and  drying 
up  the  cold  and  crude  humors  of  the  body."  Wherefore,  he 
thinks  it  a  wise  course  for  all  cold  complexions  to  come  to  take 
physic  in  New  England,  and  ends  with  those  often  quoted 
words,  that  "  a  sup  of  New  England's  air  is  better  than  a  whole 
draught  of  Old  England's  ale."  4  Mr.  Higginson  died,  however, 
"  of  a  hectic  fever,"  a  little  more  than  a  year  after  his  arrival. 

The  medical  records  which  I  shall  cite,  show  that  the  colonists 
were  riot  exempt  from  the  complaints  of  the  Old  World.  Besides 
the  common  diseases  to  which  their  descendants  are  subject, 
there  were  two  others,  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  dreaded  small-pox, 
which  later  medical  science  has  disarmed,  —  little  known  among 
us  at  the  present  day,  but  frequent  among  the  first  settlers.  The 
first  of  these  was  the  scurvy,  already  mentioned,  of  which 
Winthrop  speaks  in  1630,  saying,  that  it  proved  fatal  to  those 
who  fell  into  discontent,  and  lingered  after  their  former  conditions 
in  England ;  the  poor  homesick  creatures  in  fact,  whom  we  so 
forget  in  our  florid  pictures  of  the  early  times  of  the  little  band 
in  the  wilderness.  Many  who  were  suffering  from  scurvy,  got 
well  when  the  «  Lyon "  arrived  from  England,  bringing  store 
of  juice  of  lemons.5  The  Governor  speaks  of  another  case  in 

1  Chron.  of  Mass.,  p.  352,  note.  2  ft,.,  pp.  251,  252. 

3  Ib-,  P-  223.  4  ib<)  p.  252. 

5  Winthrop's  New  England,  vol.  i.  pp.  44,  45. 


268  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

1644;  and  it  seems  probable  that  the  disease  was  not  of  rare 
occurrence. 

The  other  complaint  from  which  they  suffered,  but  which  has 
nearly  disappeared  from  among  us,  was  intermittent  fever,  or 
fever  and  ague.  I  investigated  the  question  as  to  the  prevalence 
of  this  disease  in  New  England,  in  a  dissertation,  which  was 
published  in  a  volume  with  other  papers,  in  the  year  1836. 
I  can  add  little  to  the  facts  there  recorded.  One  which  escaped 
me  was,  that  Joshua  Scottow,  in  "  Old  Men's  Tears,"  dated  1691, 
speaks  of  "  shaking  agues,"  as  among  the  trials  to  which  they 
had  been  subjected.  The  outline  map  of  New  England,  accom 
panying  the  dissertation  above  referred  to,  indicates  all  the  places 
where  I  had  evidence  that  the  disease  had  originated.  It  was 
plain  enough  that  it  used  to  be  known  in  many  places  where  it 
has  long  ceased  to  be  feared.  Still  it  was  and  is  remarkable  to 
see  what  a  clean  bill  of  health  in  this  particular  respect  our  barren 
soil  inherited  with  its  sterility.  There  are  some  malarious  spots 
on  the  edge  of  Lake  Champlain,  and  there  have  been  some  tem 
porary  centres  of  malaria,  within  the  memory  of  man,  on  one  or 
more  of  our  Massachusetts  rivers,  but  these  are  harmless  enough, 
for  the  most  part,  unless  the  millers  dam  them,  when  they  are 
apt  to  retaliate  with  a  whiff  from  their  meadows,  that  sets  the 
whole  neighborhood  shaking  with  fever  and  ague. 

The  Pilgrims  of  the  "  Mayflower  "  had  with  them  a  good  phy 
sician,  a  man  of  standing,  a  deacon  of  their  church,  one  whom 
they  loved  -and  trusted,  Dr.  Samuel  Fuller.  But  no  medical 
skill  could  keep  cold  and  hunger  and  bad  food,  and,  probably 
enough,  desperate  homesickness  in  some  of  the  feebler  sort, 
from  doing  their  work.  No  detailed  record  remains  of  what  they 
suffered  or  what  was  attempted  for  their  relief  during  the  first 
sad  winter.  The  graves  of  those  who  died  were  levelled  and 
sowed  with  grain  that  the  losses  of  the  little  band  might  not  be 
suspected  by  the  savage  tenants  of  the  wilderness,1  and  their 
story  remains  untold. 

Of  Dr.  Fuller's  practice,  at  a  later  period,  we  have  an  account 
in  a  letter  of  his  to  Governor  Bradford,  dated  June,  1630.  "  I 
have  been  to  Matapan  "  (now  Dorchester),  he  says,  "  and  let  some 

1  Holmes's  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  168,  note. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  269 

twenty  of  those  people  blood."  l  Such  wholesale  depletion  as 
this,  except  with  avowed  homicidal  intent,  is  quite  unknown 
in  these  days;  though  I  once  saw  the  noted  French  surgeon, 
Lisfranc,  in  a  fine  phlebotomizing  frenzy,  order  some  ten  or 
fifteen  patients,  taken  almost  indiscriminately,  to  be  bled  in  a 
single  morning. 

Dr.  Fuller's  two  visits  to  Salem,  at  the  request  of  Governor 
"Endicott,  seem  to  have  been  very  satisfactory  to  that  gentleman.2 
Morton,  the  wild  fellow  of  Merry  Mount,  gives  a  rather  question 
able  reason  for  the  Governor's  being  so  well  pleased  with  the 
physician's  doings.  The  names  under  which  he  mentions  the 
two  personages,  it  will  be  seen,  are  not  intended  to  be  compli 
mentary.  "  Dr.  Noddy  did  a  great  cure  for  Captain  Littleworth. 
He  cured  him  of  a  disease  called  a  wife." 3  William  Gager, 
who  came  out  with  Winthrop,  is  spoken  of  as  "  a  right  godly 
man  and  skilful  chyrurgeon,"  but  died  of  a  malignant  fever  not 
very  long  after  his  arrival.4 

Two  practitioners  of  the  ancient  town  of  Newbury  are  en 
titled  to  special  notice,  for  different  reasons.  The  first  is  Dr. 
John  Clark,  who  is  said  by  tradition  to  have  been  the  first  regu 
larly  educated  physician  who  resided  in  New  England.  His 
portrait,  in  close-fitting  skull-cap,  with  long  locks  and  ven 
erable  flowing  beard,  is  familiar  to  our  eyes  on  the  wall  of  our 
Society's  antechamber.  His  left  hand  rests  upon  a  skull,  his 
right  hand  holds  an  instrument  which  deserves  a  passing  com 
ment.  It  is  a  trephine,  a  surgical  implement  for  cutting  round 
pieces  out  of  broken  skulls,  so  as  to  get  at  the  fragments  \vhich 
have  been  driven  in,  and  lift  them  up.  It  has  a  handle  like  that 
of  a  gimlet,  with  a  claw  like  a  hammer,  to  lift  with,  I  suppose, 
which  last  contrivance  I  do  not  see  figured  in  my  books.  But 
the  point  I  refer  to  is  this :  the  old  instrument,  the  trepan,  had 
a  handle  like  a  wimble,  —  what  we  call  a  brace  or  bit-stock. 
The  trephine,  is  not  mentioned  at  all  in  Peter  Lowe's  book,  Lon 
don,  1634 ;  nor  in  Wiseman's  great  work  on  Surgery,  London, 
1676 ;  nor  in  the  translation  of  Dionis,  published  by  Jacob  Ton- 
son,  in  1710.  In  fact  it  was  only  brought  into  more  general  use 
by  Cheselden  and  Sharpe  so  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  last 

l  Chron.  of  M.OSS.,  p.  312.  2  ib.,  p.  32.  3  ib<)  p.  131e 

*  Winthrop's  New  England,  vol.  i.  p.  33. 


270  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

century.1  As  John  Clark  died  in  1661,  it  is  remarkable  to  see 
the  last  fashion  in  the  way  of  skull-sawing  contrivances  in 
his  hands,  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  claw  on  the  handle,  and  a 
Key's  saw,  so  called  in  England,  lying  on  the  table  by  him,  and 
painted  there  more  than  a  hundred  years  before  Hey  was  born. 
This  saw  is  an  old  invention,  perhaps  as  old  as  Hippocrates,  and 
may  be  seen  figured  in  the  Armamentarium  Chirurgicum  of 
Scultetus,  or  in  the  Works  of  Ambroise  Pare*. 

Dr.  Clark  is  said  to  have  received  a  diploma  before  he  came, 
for  skill  in  lithotomy.2  He  loved  horses,  as  a  good  many  doctors 
do,  and  left  a  good  property  as  they  all  ought  to  do.  His  grave 
and  noble  presence,  with  the  few  facts  concerning  him,  told  with 
more  or  less  traditional  authority,  give  us  the  feeling  that  the 
people  of  Newbury,  and  afterwards  of  Boston,  had  a  wise  and 
skilful  medical  adviser  and  surgeon  in  Dr.  John  Clark. 

The  venerable  town  of  Newbury  had  another  physician  who 
was  less  fortunate.  The  following  is  a  court  record  of  1652  :  — 

"This  is  to  certify  whom  it  may  concern,  that  we  the  subscribers,  being 
called  upon  to  testify  against  [doctor]  William  Snelling  for  words  by 
him  uttered,  affirm  that  being  in  way  of  merry  discourse,  a  health  being 
drank  to  all  friends,  he  answered,  — 

'I'll  pledge  my  friends, 

And  for  my  foes 

A  plague  for  their  heels 

And,'  — 

[a  similar  malediction  on  the  other  extremity  of  their  feet.] 

"  Since  when  he  hath  affirmed  that  he  only  intended  the  proverb  used 
in  the  west  country,  nor  do  we  believe  he  intended  otherwise. 

[Signed],  WILLIAM  THOMAS. 

THOMAS  MILWARD. 

"March  12th  1651,  All  which  I  acknowledge,  and  I  am  sorry  I  did  not 
expresse  my  intent,  or  that  I  was  so  weak  as  to  use  so  foolish  a  proverb. 
[Signed],  GULIELMUS  SNELLING." 

Notwithstanding  this  confession  and  apology,  the  record  tells 
us,  that"  William  Snelling  in  his  presentment  for  cursing  is  fined 
ten  shillings  and  the  fees  of  court."  3 

1  British  .and  For.  Med.  Rev.,  vol.  xvi.  p.  49. 

2  Thacher,  Med.  Biography,  p.  222. 

3  Coffin,  Hist,  of  Newbury,  p.  55. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  271 

I  will  mention  one  other  name  among  those  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  medical  profession  in  New  England.  The  "  apostle  "  Eliot 
says,  writing  in  1647,  "  We  never  had  but  one  anatomy  in  the 
country,  which  Mr.  Giles  Firman,  now  in  England,  did  make 
and  read  upon  very  well."  1 

Giles  Firmin,  as  the  name  is  commonly  spelled,  practised  physic 
in  this  country  for  a  time.  He  seems  to  have  found  it  a  poor 
business ;  for,  in  a  letter  to  Governor  Winthrop,  he  says,  "  I  am 
strongly  sett  upon  to  studye  divinitie :  my  studyes  else  must  be 
lost,  for  physick  is  but  a  meene  helpe."  2 

Giles  Firmin's  Lectures  on  Anatomy  were  the  first  scientific 
teachings  of  the  New  World.  While  the  Fathers  were  enlight 
ened  enough  to  permit  such  instructions,  they  were  severe  in 
dealing  with  quackery ;  for,  in  1631,  our  court  records  show  that 
one  Nicholas  Knopp,  or  Knapp,  was  sentenced  to  be  fined  or 
whipped  "  for  taking  upon  him  to  cure  the  scurvey  by  a  water  of 
noe  worth  nor  value,  which  he  solde  att  a  very  deare  rate."  3 
Empty  purses  or  sore  backs  would  be  common  with  us  to  day  if 
such  a  rule  were  enforced. 

Besides  the  few  worthies  spoken  of,  and  others  whose  names  I 
have  not  space  to  record,  we  must  remember  that  there  were  many 
clergymen  who  took  charge  of  the  bodies  as  well  as  the  souls  of 
their  patients,  among  them  two  Presidents  of  Harvard  College, 
—  Charles  Chauncy  and  Leonard  Hoar, —  and  Thomas  Thacher, 
first  minister  of  the  "  Old  South,"  author  of  the  earliest  medical 
treatise  printed  in  the  country,4  whose  epitaph  in  Latin  and 
Greek,  said  to  have  been  written  by  Eleazer,  an  "  Indian  Youth  " 
and  a  member  of  the  Senior  Class  of  Harvard  College,  may  be 
found  in  the  "  Magnalia."  5  I  miss  this  noble  savage's  name  in 
our  triennial  catalogue ;  and,  as  there  is  many  a  slip  between  the 
cup  and  lip,  one  is  tempted  to  guess  that  he  may  have  lost  his 
degree  by  some  display  of  his  native  instinct,  —  possibly  a  flour 
ish  of  the  tomahawk  or  scalping-knife.  However  this  may  have 
been,  the  good  man  he  celebrated  was  a  notable  instance  of  the 

1  Hist.  Coll.  3d  Series,  vol.  iv.  p.  67. 

2  Winthrop  Papers  in  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  vii.  p.  273. 
8  Mass.  Col.  Court  Eecords,  vol.  i.  p.  63. 

4  "  A  Brief  Rule  to  guide  the  Common  People  in  Small-pox  and  Measles."   1674. 
8  Book  iii.  chap.  26. 


272  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION   IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Angelical  Conjunction,  as  the  author  of  the  "  Magnalia  "•  calls  it, 
of  the  offices  of  clergyman  and  medical  practitioner. 

Michael  Wigglesworth,  author  of  the  "  Day  of  Doom,"  attended 
the  sick  "  not  only  as  a  Pastor,  but  as  a  Physician  too,  and  this, 
not  only  in  his  own  town,  but  also  in  all  those  of  the  vicinity." 1 
Mather  says  of  the  sons  of  Charles  Chauncy,  "All  of  these  did, 
while  they  had  Opportunity,  Preach  the  Gospel ;  and  most,  if  not 
all  of  them,  like  their  excellent  Father  before  them,  had  an  emi 
nent  skill  in  physick  added  unto  their  other  accomplishments," 
&c.  Roger  Williams  is  said  to  have  saved  many  in  a  kind  of 
pestilence  which  swept  away  many  Indians. 

To  these  names  must  be  added,  as  sustaining  a  certain  rela 
tion  to  the  healing  art,  that  of  the  first  Governor  Winthrop, 
who  is  said  by  John  Cotton  to  have  been  "  Help  for  our  Bodies 
by  Physick  [and]  for  our  Estates  by  Law,"  2  and  that  of  his  son, 
the  Governor  of  Connecticut,  who,  as  we  shall  see,  was  as  much 
physician  as  magistrate. 

I  had  submitted  to  me  for  examination,  in  1862,  a  manuscript 
found  among  the  Winthrop  Papers,  marked  with  the  superscrip 
tion,  "  For  my  worthy  friend  Mr.  Wintrop,"  dated  in  1643, 
London,  signed  Edward  Stafford,  and  containing  medical  direc 
tions  and  prescriptions.  It  may  be  remembered  by  some  present 
that  I  wrote  a  report  on  this  paper,  which  was  published  in  the 
"  Proceedings  "  of  this  Society.  Whether  the  paper  was  written 
for  Governor  John  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts,  or  for  his  son, 
Governor  John,  of  Connecticut,  there  is  no  positive  evidence  that 
I  have  been  able  to  obtain.  It  is  very  interesting,  however,  as 
giving  short  and  simple  practical  directions,  such  as  would  be 
most  like  to  be  wanted  and  most  useful,  in  the  opinion  of  a  phy 
sician  in  repute  of  that  day. 

The  diseases  prescribed  for  are  plague,  small-pox,  fevers,  king's 
evil,  insanity,  falling-sickness,  and  the  like ;  with  such  injuries  as 
broken  bones,  dislocations,  and  burning  with  gunpowder.  The 
remedies  are  of  three  kinds :  simples,  such  as  St.  John's  wort, 
Clown's  all-heal,  elder,  parsley,  maidenhair;  mineral  drugs,  such 
as  lime,  saltpetre,  Armenian  bole,  crocus  metallorum,  or  sul- 
phuret  of  antimony ;  and  thaumaturgic  or  mystical,  of  which  the 

1  Cotton  Mather's  Funeral  Sermon,  preached  Jan.  24,  1705. 

2  Ib.,  book  ii.  chap.  4. 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  273 

chief  is,  "  My  black  powder  against  the  plague,  small-pox ;  pur 
ples,  all  sorts  of  feavers ;  Poyson ;  either,  by  Way  of  Preven 
tion  or  after  Infection."  This  marvellous  remedy  was  made  by 
putting  live  toads  into  an  earthen  pot  so  as  to  half  fill  it,  and 
baking  and  burning  them  "in  the  open  ayre,  not  in  an  house," 
—  concerning  which  latter  possibility  I  suspect  Madam  Winthrop 
would  have  had  something  to  say,  —  until  they  could  be  reduced 
by  pounding,  first  into  a  brown,  and  then  into  a  black,  powder. 
Blood-letting  in  some  inflammations,  fasting  in  the  early  stage 
of  fevers,  and  some  of  those  peremptory  drugs  with  which  most 
of  us  have  been  well  acquainted  in  our  time,  the  infragrant 
memories  of  which  I  will  not  pursue  beyond  this  slight  allusion, 
are  among  his  remedies. 

The  Winthrops,  to  one  of  whom  Dr.  Stafford's  directions  were 
addressed,  were  the  medical  as  well  as  the  political  advisers  of 
their  fellow-citizens  for  three  or  four  successive  generations.  One 
of  them,  Governor  John,  of  Connecticut,  practised  so  extensively, 
that,  but  for  his  more  distinguished  title  in  the  State,  he  would 
have  been  remembered  as  the  Doctor.  The  fact  that  he  practised 
in  another  colony,  for  the  most  part,  makes  little  difference  in 
the  value  of  the  records  we  have  of  his  medical  experience, 
which  have  fortunately  been  preserved,  and  give  a  very  fair  idea, 
in  all  probability,  of  the  way  in  which  patients  were  treated  in 
Massachusetts,  when  they  fell  into  intelligent  and  somewhat 
educated  hands,  a  little  after  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

I  have  before  me,  while  writing,  a  manuscript  collection  of  the 
medical  cases  treated  by  him,  and  recorded  at  the  time  in  his 
own  hand,  which  has  been  intrusted  to  me  by  our  President,  his 
descendant.  They  are  generally  marked  Hartford,  and  extend 
from  the  year  1657  to  1669.  From  these  manuscripts,  and  from 
the  letters  printed  in  the  Winthrop  Papers  published  by  our 
Society,  I  have  endeavored  to  obtain  some  idea  of  the  practice 
of  Governor  John  Winthrop,  Jr.  The  learned  eye  of  Mr.  Pul- 
sifer  would  have  helped  me,  no  doubt,  as  it  has  done  in  other 
cases;  but  I  have  ventured  this  time  to  attempt  finding  my 
own  way  among  the  hieroglyphics  of  these  old  pages.  By 
careful  comparison  of  many  prescriptions,  and  by  the  aid  of 
Schroder,  Salmon,  Culpeper,  and  other  old  compilers,  I  have 

18 


274  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

deciphered  many  of  his  difficult  paragraphs  with  their  mysterious 
recipes. 

The  Governor  employed  a  number  of  the  simples  dear  to  ancient 
women,  —  elecampane  and  elder  and  wormwood  and  anise  and 
the  rest;  but  he  also  employed  certain  mineral  remedies,  which 
he  almost  always  indicates  by  their  ancient  symbols,  or  by  a  name 
which  should  leave  them  a  mystery  to  the  vulgar.  I  am  now 
prepared  to  reveal  the  mystic  secrets  of  the  Governor's  beneficent 
art,  which  rendered  so  many  good  and  great  as  well  as  so  many 
poor  and  dependent  people  his  debtors  —  at  least,  in  their  simple 
belief —  for  their  health  and  their  lives. 

His  great  remedy,  which  he  gave  oftener  than  any  other,  was 
nitre ;  which  he  ordered  in  doses  of  twenty  or  thirty  grains  to 
adults,  and  of  three  grains  to  infants.  Measles,  colic,  sciatica, 
headache,  giddiness,  and  many  other  ailments,  all  found  them 
selves  treated,  and  I  trust  bettered,  by  nitre ;  a  pretty  safe 
medicine  in  moderate  doses,  and  one  not  likely  to  keep  the  good 
Governor  awake  at  night,  thinking  whether  it  might  not  kill,  if  it 
did  not  cure.  We  may  say  as  much  for  spermaceti,  which  he 
seems  to  have  considered  "  the  sovereign'st  thing  on  earth  "  for 
inward  bruises,  and  often  prescribes  after  falls  and  similar  in 
juries. 

One  of  the  next  remedies,  in  point  of  frequency,  which  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  giving,  was  (probably  diaphoretic}  antimony  ; 
a  mild  form  of  that  very  active  metal,  and  which,  mild  as  it 
was,  left  his  patients  very  commonly  with  a  pretty  strong  con 
viction  that  they  had  been  taking  something  that  did  not  exactly 
agree  with  them.  Now  and  then  he  gave  a  little  iron  or  sulphur 
or  calomel,  but  very  rarely  ;  occasionally,  a  good,  honest  dose 
of  rhubarb  or  jalap;  a  taste  of  stinging  horseradish,  oftener 
of  warming  guiacum  ;  sometimes,  an  anodyne,  in  the  shape  of 
mithridate,  —  the  famous  old  farrago,  which  owed  its  virtue  to 
poppy  juice  ; 1  very  often,  a  harmless  powder  of  coral ;  less  fre 
quently,  an  inert  prescription  of  pleasing  amber ;  and  (let  me 
say  it  softly  within  possible  hearing  of  his  honored  descendant), 
twice  or  oftener,  —  let  us  hope  as  a  last  resort,  —  an  electuary 

1  This  is  the  remedy  which  a  Boston  divine  tried  to  simplify.  See  "  Electuarium 
Novum  Alexiplmrmocum,"  by  Rev.  Thomas  llarward,  lecturer  at  the  Royal 
Chappell.  Boston,  1732.  This  tract  is  in  our  Society's  library. 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  275 

of  millipedes,  —  sowbugs,  if  we  must  give  them  their  homely 
English  name.  One  or  two  other  prescriptions,  of  the  many 
unmentionable  ones  which  disgraced  the  pharmacopoeia  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  are  to  be  found,  but  only  in  very  rare 
instances,  in  the  faded  characters  of  the  manuscript. 

The  excellent  Governor's  accounts  of  diseases  are  so  brief, 
that  we  get  only  a  very  general  notion  of  the  complaints  for 
which  he  prescribed.  Measles  and  their  consequences  are  at 
first  more  prominent  than  any  other  one  affection,  but  the  com 
mon  infirmities  of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages  seem  to  have  come 
under  his  healing  hand.  Fever  and  ague  appears  to  have  been 
of  frequent  occurrence. 

His  published  correspondence  shows,  that  many  noted  people 
were  in  communication  with  him  as  his  patients.  Roger  Wil 
liams  wants  a  little  of  his  medicine  for  Mrs.  Weekes's  daughter; 
worshipful  John  Haynes  is  in  receipt  of  his  powders ;  trouble 
some  Captain  Underhill  wants  "  a  little  white  vitterall  "  for  his 
wife,  and  something  to  cure  his  wife's  friend's  neuralgia  (I  think 
his  wife's  friend's  husband  had  a  little  rather  have  had  it  sent  by 
the  hands  of  Mrs.  Underhill,  than  by  those  of  the  gallant  and 
discursive  captain)  ;  and  pious  John  Davenport  says,  his  wife 
"  tooke  but  one  halfe  of  one  of  the  papers "  (which  probably 
contained  the  medicine  he  called  rubila),  "but  could  not  beare 
the  taste  of  it,  and  is  discouraged  from  taking  any  more  ;  "  and 
honored  William  Leete  asks  for  more  powders  for  his  "  poore 
little  daughter"  Graciana,  though  he  found  it  "hard  to  make  her 
take  it,"  delicate,  and  of  course  sensitive,  child  as  she  was,  lan 
guishing  and  dying  before  her  time,  in  spite  of  all  the  bitter  things 
she  swallowed, —  God  help  all  little  children  in  the  hands  of 
dosing  doctors  and  howling  dervishes!  Restless  Samuel  Gor 
ton,  now  tamed  by  the  burden  of  fourscore  and  two  years, 
writes  so  touching  an  account  of  his  infirmities,  and  expresses 
such  overflowing  gratitude  for  the  relief  he  has  obtained  from 
the  Governor's  prescriptions,  wondering  how  "  a  thing  so  little  in 
quantity,  so  little  in  sent,  so  little  in  taste,  and  so  little  to  sence 
in  operation,  should  beget  and  bring  forth  such  efects,"  that  we 
repent  our  hasty  exclamation,  and  bless  the  memory  of  the  good 
Governor,  who  gave  relief  to  the  worn-out  frame  of  our  long- 
departed  brother,  the  sturdy  old  heretic  of  Rhode  Island. 


276  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

What  was  that  medicine  which  so  frequently  occurs  in  the 
printed  letters  under  the  name  of  "  rubila  "  ?  It  is  evidently  a 
secret  remedy,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  not  yet  been  made  out. 
I  had  almost  given  it  up  in  despair,  when  I  found  what  appears 
to  be  a  key  to  the  mystery.  In  the  vast  multitude  of  prescrip 
tions  contained  in  the  manuscripts,  most  of  them  written  in 
symbols,  I  find  one  which  I  thus  interpret :  — 

"  Four  grains  of  (diaphoretic)  antimony,  with  twenty  grains 
of  nitre,  with  a  little  salt  of  tin,  making  rubila."  Perhaps  some 
thing  was  added  to  redden  the  powder,  as  he  constantly  speaks 
of  "  rubifying "  or  "  viridating  "  his  prescriptions  ;  a  very  com 
mon  practice  of  prescribers,  when  their  powders  look  a  little  too 
much  like  plain  salt  or  sugar. 

Waitstill  Winthrop,  the  Governor's  son,  "  was  a  skilful  physi 
cian,"  says  Mr.  Sewall,  in  his  funeral  sermon ;  "  and  generously 
gave,  not  only  his  advice,  but  also  his  Medicines,  for  the  healing 
of  the  Sick,  which,  by  the  Blessing  of  God,  were  made 
successful  for  the  recovery  of  many."  l  His  son  John,  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Royal  Society,  speaks  of  himself  as  "Dr.  Win 
throp,"  and  mentions  one  of  his  own  prescriptions  in  a  letter 
to  Cotton  Mather.  Our  President  tells  me  that  there  was  an 
heirloom  of  the  ancient  skill  in  his  family,  within  his  own  re 
membrance,  in  the  form  of  a  certain  precious  eye-water,  to  which 
the  late  President  John  Quincy  Adams  ascribed  rare  virtue, 
and  which  he  used  to  obtain  from  the  possessor  of  the  ancient 
recipe. 

These  inherited  prescriptions  are  often  treasured  in  families,  I 
do  not  doubt,  for  many  generations.  When  I  was  yet  of  trivial 
age,  and  suffering  occasionally,  as  many  children  do,  from  what 
one  of  my  Cambridgeport  schoolmates  used  to  call  the  "  ager,"  — 
meaning  thereby  toothache  or  faceache,  —  I  used  to  get  relief 
from  a  certain  plaster  which  never  went  by  any  other  name  in 
the  family  than  "  Dr.  Oliver." 

Dr.  James  Oliver  was  my  great-great-grandfather,  graduated 
in  1680,  and  died  in  1703.  This  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  his 
nostrums ;  for  nostrum,  as  is  well  known,  means  nothing  more 

1  See  also  his  epitaph  in  "  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Winthrop,"  by  his  descend 
ant,  Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  277 

% 

than  our  own  or  my  own  particular  medicine,  or  other  posses 
sion  or  secret,  and  physicians  in  old  times  used  to  keep  their 
choice  recipes  to  themselves  a  good  deal,  as  we  have  had  occasion 
to  see. 

Some  years  ago  I  found  among  my  old  books  a  small  manu 
script  marked  "  James  Oliver.  This  Book  Begun  Aug.  12,  (16)85." 
It  is  a  rough  sort  of  account-book,  containing  among  other 
things  prescriptions  for  patients,  and  charges  for  the  same,  with 
counter-charges  for  the  purchase  of  medicines  and  other  matters. 
Dr.  Oliver  practised  in  Cambridge,  where  may  be  seen  his  tomb 
with  inscriptions,  and  with  sculptured  figures  that  look  more 
like  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,  as  given  in  Calmet's  Dictionary, 
than  like  any  angels  admitted  into  good  society  here  or  else 
where. 

I  do  not  find  any  particular  record  of  what  his  patients  suf 
fered  from,  but  I  have  carefully  copied  out  the  remedies  he 
mentions,  and  find  them  to  form  a  very  respectable  catalogue. 
Besides  the  usual  simples,  elder,  parsley,  fennel,  saffron,  snake- 
root,  wormwood,  I  find  the  Elixir  Proprietatis,  with  other  elixirs 
and  cordials,  as  if  he  rather  fancied  warming  medicines ;  but  he 
called  in  the  aid  of  some  of  the  more  energetic  remedies,  includ 
ing  iron,  and  probably  mercury,  as  he  bought  two  pounds  of  it 
at  one  time. 

The  most  interesting  item  is  his  bill  against  the  estate  of 
Samuel  Pason,  of  Roxbury,  for  services  during  his  last  illness. 
He  attended  this  gentleman  —  for  such  he  must  have  been,  by 
the  amount  of  physic  which  he  took,  and  which  his  heirs  paid 
for  —  from  June  4th,  1696,  to  September  3d,  of  the  same  year  — 
three  months.  I  observe  he  charges  for  visits  as  well  as  for 
medicines,  which  is  not  the  case  in  most  of  his  bills.  He  opens 
the  attack  with  a  carminative  appeal  to  the  visceral  conscience, 
and  follows  it  up  with  good  hard-hitting  remedies  for  dropsy, — 
as  I  suppose  the  disease  would  have  been  called,  —  and  finishes 
off  with  a  rallying  dose  of  hartshorn  and  iron. 

It  is  a  source  of  honest  pride  to  his  descendant  that  his  bill, 
which  was  honestly  paid,  as  it  seems  to  have  been  honorably 
earned,  amounted  to  the  handsome  sum  of  seven  pounds 
and  two  shillings.  Let  me  add  that  he  repeatedly  prescribes 
plasters,  one  of  which  was  very  probably  the  "  Dr.  Oliver " 


278 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 


that  soothed  my  infant  griefs,  and  for  which  I  blush  to  say  that 
my  venerated  ancestor  received  from  Goodman  Hancock  the 
painfully  exiguous  sum  of  no  pounds,  no  shillings,  and  six 
pence. 

I  have  illustrated  the  practice  of  the  first  century,  from  the  two 
manuscripts  I  have  examined,  as  giving  an  impartial  idea  of  its 
every-day  methods.  The  Governor,  Johannes  Secundus,  it 
is  fair  to  remember,  was  an  amateur  practitioner,  while  my 
ancestor  was  a  professed  physician.  Comparing  their  modes 
of  treatment  with  the  many  scientific  follies  still  prevailing  in 
the  Old  World,  and  still  more  with  the  extraordinary  theological 
superstitions  of  the  community  in  which  they  lived,  we  shall 
find  reason,  I  think,  to  consider  the  art  of  healing  as  in  a 
comparatively  creditable  state  during  the  first  century  of  New 
England. 

In  addition  to  the  evidence  as  to  methods  of  treatment  fur 
nished  by  the  manuscripts  I  have  cited,  I  subjoin  the  following 
document,  to  which  my  attention  was  called  by  Dr.  Shurtleff, 
our  present  Mayor.  This  is  a  letter  of  which  the  original  is  to  be 
found  in  vol.  Ixix.  page  10  of  the  "  Archives"  preserved  at  the  State 
House  in  Boston.  It  will  be  seen  that  what  the  surgeon  wanted 
consisted  chiefly  of  opiates,  stimulants,  cathartics,  plasters,  and 
materials  for  bandages.  The  complex  and  varied  formuke  have 
given  place  to  simpler  and  often  more  effective  forms  of  the 
same  remedies ;  but  the  list  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  made 
out  are  proofs  of  the  good  sense  and  schooling  of  the  surgeon, 
who,  it  may  be  noted,  was  in  such  haste  that  he  neglected  all  his 
stops.  He  might  well  be  in  a  hurry,  as  on  the  very  day  upon 
which  he  wrote,  a  great  body  of  Indians  —  supposed  to  be  six 
or  seven  hundred  —  appeared  before  Hatfield ;  and  twenty-five 
resolute  young  men  of  Hadley,  from  which  town  he  wrote, 
crossed  the  river  and  drove  them  away.1 

HADLY  May  30 :  76 
Mr  RAWSON  Sf 

What  we  have  recd  by  Tho :  Houey  the  past  mouth  is  not 

the  cheifest  of  our  wants  as  you  have  love  for  poor  wounded  I  pray  let  us 
not  want  for  these  following  medicines  if  you  have  not  a  speedy  convey 
ance  of  them  I  pray  send  on  purpose  they  are  those  things  mentioned  in 

1  Holmes's  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  381. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 


279 


my  former  letter  but  to  prevent  future  mistakes  I  have  wrote  them  att 
large  wee  have  great  want  with  the  greatest  hast  and  speed  let  us  be 
supplyed 

Yr  Ser* 
WILL  LOCKE 


Oxycroceum Ib  j 

Emp:  Diachyl:  Cum  Gum    .     .  tt>  j 

De  betonica ft  j 

Flor:  chamemseli Ib  j 

Flor:  meliloti ft  j 

Sal:  prunellse 1   iiij 

pul:  Aloes 1  iiij 

1  Sem:  Anisi  Santonicse  an     .     .  §  iiij 

Aq:  theriacalis    ....          .  ft  ij 

Spt.  Cinnamomi ft  j 

Syr:  Gariophyllor: t>  ij 

Syr:  Rosarum  Solut:    .     .     .     .  Bb  ij 

Croci 3  ss 

Old  linnin  as  much  as  you  can  get 

WILL:  LOCKE 


1  Imp.  Ting4  Basilic ft)  ij 

1  Liniment  Arcei ft>  ij 

Ung*  Nervin: ft  ij 

Ol:  Rosarum ft  ij 

2  01:  terebinth: Jb  ij 

Mithridat: ft  j 

Diascordii ft>  j 

theriac:  Andromac:      .    .    .     .  ft>  ss 

Licortiae ft  j 

Hord:  Gallic: ft  iiij 

Empl:  Diapal: ft  iij 

Empl:  De  Minio ft  iij 

Empl:  De  Meliloti ft  ij 

Empl:  paracelsi ft  j 

[Direction]  for  Mr  Edward  Rawson 
Seer':  wth  hast  &  speed  humbly 
present  These  in 
Boston 

[Endorsed] 

Mr  Locke's  Letter  Recd  from  the  Governor  13  June  &  acquainted  ye  Council  with 
it  but  could  not  obtaine  any  thing  to  be  sent  in  answer  thereto  13  June  1676 

I  have  given  some  idea  of  the  chief  remedies  used  by  our  ear 
lier  physicians,  which  were  both  Galenic  and  chemical ;  that  is, 
vegetable  and  mineral.  They,  of  course,  employed  the  usual  per 
turbing  medicines  which  Montaigne  says  are  the  chief  reliance 
of  their  craft.  There  were,  doubtless,  individual  practitioners  who 
employed  special  remedies  with  exceptional  boldness  and  per 
haps  success.  Mr.  Eliot  is  spoken  of,  in  a  letter  of  William 
Leete  to  Winthrop,  Junior,  as  being  under  Mr.  Greenland's 
mercurial  administrations.3  The  latter  was  probably  enough  one 
of  these  specialists. 

There  is  another  class  of  remedies  which  appears  to  have  been 
employed  occasionally,  but,  on  the  whole,  is  so  little  prominent 
as  to  imply  a  good  deal  of  common  sense  among  the  medical 
practitioners,  as  compared  with  the  superstitions  prevailing 
around  them.  I  have  said  that  I  have  caught  the  good  Governor, 


1  Crossed  out  in  the  letter.  2  «  The  last  was  broken.' 

3  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  vii.  p.  575. 


280  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

now  and  then,  prescribing  the  electuary  of  millipedes ;  but  he  is 
entirely  excused  by  the  almost  incredible  fact  that  they  were  re 
tained  in  the  materia  medico,  so  late  as  when  Rees's  Cyclopaedia 
was  published,  and  we  there  find  the  directions  formerly  given 
by  the  College  of  Edinburgh  for  their  preparation.  Once  or 
twice  we  have  found  him  admitting  still  more  objectionable 
articles  into  his  materia  medica;  in  doing  which,  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  he  could  plead  grave  and  learned  authority.  But  these 
instances  are  very  rare  exceptions  in  a  medical  practice  of  many 
years,  which  is,  on  the  whole,  very  respectable,  considering  the 
time  and  circumstances. 

Some  remedies  of  questionable  though  not  odious  character 
appear  occasionally  to  have  been  employed  by  the  early  practi 
tioners,  but  they  were  such  as  still  had  the  support  of  the  medical 
profession.  Governor  John  Winthrop,  the  first,  sends  for  East- 
Indian  bezoar,  with  other  commodities  he  is  writing  for.1  Gov 
ernor  Endicott  sends  him  one  he  had  of  Mr.  Humfrey.2  I  hope  it 
was  genuine,  for  they  cheated  infamously  in  the  matter  of  this 
concretion,  which  ought  to  come  out  of  an  animal's  stomach,  but 
the  real  history  of  which  resembles  what  is  sometimes  told  of 
modern  sausages.  There  is  a  famous  law-case  of  James  the 
First's  time,  in  which  a  goldsmith  sold  a  hundred  pounds'  worth 
of  what  he  called  bezoar,  which  was  proved  to  be  false,  and  the 
purchaser  got  a  verdict  against  him.  Governor  Endicott  also 
sends  Winthrop  a  unicorn's  horn,  which  was  the  property  of  a 
certain  Mrs.  Beggarly,  who,  in  spite  of  her  name,  seems  to  have 
been  rich  in  medical  knowledge  and  possessions.3  The  famous 
Thomas  Bartholirnus  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  virtues  of  this 
fabulous-sounding  remedy,  which  was  published  in  1641,  and 
republished  in  1678. 

The  "  antimonial  cup,"  a  drinking  vessel  made  of  that  metal, 
which,  like  our  quassia-wood  cups,  might  be  filled  and  emptied 
in  scecula  sceculorum  without  exhausting  its  virtues,  is  mentioned 
by  Matthew  Cradock,  in  a  letter  to  the  elder  Winthrop,  but  in  a 
doubtful  way,  as  it  was  thought,  he  says,  to  have  shortened  the 
days  of  Sir  Nathaniel  Riche ;  and  Winthrop  himself,  as  I  think, 
refers  to  its  use,  calling  it  simply  "  the  cup."  4  An  antimonial 

1  Hist,  of  N.  England,  vol.  ii.  p.  385.     Appendix. 

2  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  vii.  p.  156.  3  Ibid. 
4  Hist,  of  N.  England,  vol.  i.  p.  394. 


THE   MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  281 

cup  is  included  in  the  inventory  of  Samuel  Seabury,  who  died 
1680,  and  is  valued  at  five  shillings.1  There  is  a  treatise  entitled 
"  The  Universall  Remedy,  or  the  Vertues  of  the  Antimoniall 
Cup,  By  John  Evans,  Minister  and  Preacher  of  God's  Word, 
London,  1634,"  in  our  own  Society's  library. 

One  other  special  remedy  deserves  notice,  because  of  native 
growth.  I  do  not  know  when  Culver's  root,  LeptandraVirginica 
of  our  National  Pharmacopoeia,  became  noted,  but  Cotton 
Mather,  writing  in  1716  to  John  Winthrop,  of  New  London, 
speaks  of  it  as  famous  for  the  cure  of  consumptions,  and  wishes 
to  get  some  of  it,  through  his  mediation,  for  Katharine,  his  eldest 
daughter.2  He  gets  it,  and  gives  it  to  the  "  poor  damsel,"  who 
is  languishing,  as  he  says,  and  who  dies  the  next  month,3 —  all  the 
sooner,  I  have  little  doubt,  for  this  uncertain  and  violent  drug 
with  which  the  meddlesome  pedant  tormented  her  in  that  spirit 
of  well-meant  but  restless  quackery,  which  could  touch  nothing 
without  making  mischief,  not  even  a  quotation,  and  yet  proved 
at  length  the  means  of  bringing  a  great  blessing  to  our  com 
munity,  as  we  shall  see  by  and  by ;  so  does  Providence  use  our 
very  vanities  and  infirmities  for  its  wise  purposes. 

Externally,  I  find  the  practitioners  on  whom  I  have  chiefly 
relied,  used  the  plasters  of  Paracelsus,  of  melilot,  diachylon,  and 
probably  diaphcenicon^  all  well  known  to  the  old  pharmacopoeias, 
and  some  of  them  to  the  modern  ones,  —  to  say  nothing  of 
"  my  yellow  salve,"  of  Governor  John,  the  second,  for  the  com 
position  of  which  we  must  apply  to  his  respected  descendant. 

The  authors  I  find  quoted,  are  Barbette's  Surgery,  Came- 
rarius  on  Gout,  and  Wecherus,  of  all  whom  notices  may  be 
found  in  the  pages  of  Haller  and  Vanderlinden ;  also,  Reed's 
Surgery,  and  Nicholas  Culpeper's  Practice  of  Physic  and 
Anatomy,  the  last  as  belonging  to  Samuel  Seabury,  chirurgeon, 
before  mentioned.  Nicholas  Culpeper  was  a  shrewd  charlatan, 
and  as  impudent  a  varlet  as  ever  prescribed  for  a  colic;  but 
knew  very  well  what  he  was  about,  and  badgers  the  College 
with  great  vigor.  A  copy  of  Spigelius's  famous  Anatomy,  in 
the  Boston  Athenaeum,  has  the  names  of  Increase  and  Samuel 

1  Thacher's  Medical  Biography,  p.  18. 

2  Mather  Papers  in  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  viii.  p.  420. 

3  Ibid,  note. 


282  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

Mather  written  in  it,  and  was  doubtless  early  overhauled  by  the 
youthful  Cotton,  who  refers  to  the  great  anatomist's  singular 
death,  among  his  curious  stories  in  the  "  Magnolia,"  and  quotes 
him  among  nearly  a  hundred  authors  whom  he  cites  in  his 
manuscript  "  The  Angel  of  Bethesda."  Dr.  John  Clark's  "  books 
and  instruments,  with  several  chirurgery  materials  in  the  closet," 1 
were  valued  in  his  inventory  at  sixty  pounds ;  Dr.  Matthew 
Fuller,  who  died  in  1678,  left  a  library  valued  at  ten  pounds ; 
and  a  surgeon's  chest  and  drugs,  valued  at  sixteen  pounds.2 

Here  we  leave  the  first  century  and  all  attempts  at  any 
further  detailed  accounts  of  medicine  and  its  practitioners.  It  is 
necessary  to  show  in  a  brief  glance  what  had  been  going  on  in 
Europe  during  the  latter  part  of  that  century,  the  first  quarter  of 
which  had  been  made  illustrious  in  the  history  of  medical 
science,  by  the  discovery  of  the  circulation. 

Charles  Barbeyrac,  a  Protestant  in  his  religion,  was  a  practi 
tioner  and  teacher  of  medicine  at  Montpellier.  His  creed  was 
in  the  way  of  his  obtaining  office  ;  but  the  young  men  followed 
his  instructions  with  enthusiasm.  Religious  and  scientific  free 
dom  breed  in  and  in,  until  it  becomes  hard  to  tell  the  family  of 
one  from  that  of  the  other.  Barbeyrac  threw  overboard  the  old 
complex  medical  farragos  of  the  pharmacoposias,  as  his  church 
had  disburdened  itself  of  the  popish  ceremonies. 

Among  the  students  who  followed  his  instructions,  were  two 
Englishmen :  one  of  them,  John  Locke,  afterwards  author  of  an 
"  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,"  three  years  younger 
than  his  teacher;  the  other,  Thomas  Sydenham,  five  years 
older.  Both  returned  to  England.  Locke,  whose  medical 
knowledge  is  borne  witness  to  by  Sydenham,  had  the  good 
fortune  to  form  a  correct  opinion  on  a  disease  from  which  the 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury  was  suffering,  which  led  to  an  operation 
that  saved  his  life.  Less  felicitous  was  his  experience  with  a 
certain  ancilla  culinaria  virgo, —  which  I  am  afraid  would  in  those 
days  have  been  translated  kitchen-wench,  instead  of  lady  of  the 
culinary  department,  —  who  turned  him  off  after  she  had  got 
tired  of  him,  and  called  in  another  practitioner.3  This  helped, 

i  Thacher's  Med.  Biog.,  p.  222.  2  Ib.,  p.  18. 

3  Locke  and  Sydenham,  p.  124.    By  John  Brown,  M.D.     Edinburgh,  18G6. 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  283 

perhaps,  to  spoil  a  promising  doctor,  and  make  an  immortal 
metaphysician.  At  any  rate,  Locke  laid  down  the  professional 
wig  and  cane,  and  took  to  other  studies. 

The  name  of  Thomas  Sydenham  is  as  distinguished  in  the 
history  of  medicine,  as  that  of  John  Locke  in  philosophy.  As 
Barbeyrac  was  found  in  opposition  to  the  established  religion, 
as  Locke  took  the  rational  side  against  orthodox  Bishop 
Stillingfleet,  so  Sydenham  went  with  Parliament  against 
Charles,  and  was  never  admitted  a  Fellow  by  the  College  of 
Physicians,  which,  after  he  was  dead,  placed  his  bust  in  their  hall 
by  the  side  of  that  of  Harvey. 

What  Sydenham  did  for  medicine  was  briefly  this :  he 
studied  the  course  of  diseases  carefully,  and  especially  as 
affected  by  the  particular  season ;  to  patients  with  fever  he  gave 
air  and  cooling  drinks,  instead  of  smothering  and  heating  them, 
with  the  idea  of  sweating  out  their  disease ;  he  ordered  horse 
back  exercise  to  consumptives ;  he,  like  his  teacher,  used  few 
and  comparatively  simple  remedies ;  he  did  not  give  any  drug 
at  all.  if  he  thought  none  was  needed,  but  let  well  enough  alone. 
He  was  a  sensible  man,  in  short,  who  applied  his  common  sense 
to  diseases  which  he  had  studied  with  the  best  light  of  science 
that  he  could  obtain. 

The  influence  of  the  reform  he  introduced  must  have  been  more 
or  less  felt  in  this  country,  but  not  much  before  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  his  great  work  was  not  published 
until  1675,  and  then  in  Latin.  I  very  strongly  suspect  that 
there  was  not  so  much  to  reform  in  the  simple  practice  of  the 
physicians  of  the  new  community,  as  there  was  in  that  of  the 
learned  big-wigs  of  the  "  College,"  who  valued  their  remedies 
too  much  in  proportion  to  their  complexity,  and  the  extravagant 
and  fantastic  ingredients  which  went  to  their  making. 

During  the  memorable  century  that  bred  and  bore  the  Revolu 
tion,  the  medical  profession  gave  great  names  to  our  history. 
But  John  Brooks  belonged  to  the  State,  and  Joseph  Warren 
belongs  to  the  country  and  mankind,  and  to  speak  of  them 
would  lead  me  beyond  my  limited  subject.  There  would  be 
little  pleasure  in  dwelling  on  the  name  of  Benjamin  Church ; 
and  as  for  the  medical  politicians,  like  Elisha  Cooke  in  the  early 


284  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

part  of  the  century,  or  Charles  Jarvis,  the  "  bald  eagle  of  Boston," 
in  its  later  years,  whether  their  practice  was  heroic  or  not,  their 
patients  were,  for  he  is  a  bold  man  who  trusts  one  that  is  making 
speeches  and  coaxing  voters,  to  meddle  with  the  internal  politics 
of  his  corporeal  republic. 

One  great  event  stands  out  in  the  medical  history  of  this 
eighteenth  century ;  namely,  the  introduction  of  the  practice  of 
inoculation  for  small-pox.  Six  epidemics  of  this  complaint  had 
visited  Boston  in  the  course  of  a  hundred  years.1  Prayers  had 
been  asked  in  the  churches,  for  more  than  a  hundred  sick  in  a 
single  day,  and  this  many  times.  About  a  thousand  persons  had 
died  in  a  twelvemonth,  we  are  told,  and,  as  we  may  infer,  chiefly 
from  this  cause.2 

In  1721,  this  disease,  after  a  respite  of  nineteen  years,  again 
appeared  as  an  epidemic.  In  that  year  it  was  that  Cotton 
Mather,  browsing,  as  was  his  wont,  on  all  the  printed  fodder 
that  came  within  reach  of  his  ever-grinding  mandibles,  came  upon 
an  account  of  inoculation  as  practised  in  Turkey,  contained 
in  the  Philosophical  Transactions.  He  spoke  of  it  to  several 
physicians,  who  paid  little  heed  to  his  story ;  for  they  knew  his 
medical  whims,  and  had  probably  been  bored,  as  we  say  now- 
a-days,  many  of  them,  with  listening  to  his  "  Angel  of  Bethesda," 
and  satiated  with  his  speculations  on  the  Nishmatk  Chajim. 

The  Reverend  Mather,  —  I  use  a  mode  of  expression  he  often 
employed  when  speaking  of  his  honored  brethren,  —  the  Rev 
erend  Mather  was  right  this  time,  and  the  irreverent  doctors  who 
laughed  at  him  were  wrong.  One  only  of  their  number  disputes 
his  claim  to  giving  the  first  impulse  to  the  practice  in  Boston. 
This  is  what  that  person  says :  — 

"The  Small-Pox  spread  in  Boston,  New  England,  A.  1721,  and  the 
Reverend  Dr.  Cotton  Mather,  having  had  the  use  of  these  Communica 
tions  from  Dr.  William  Douglass  "  (that  is,  the  writer  of  these  words)  ; 
"  surreptitiously,  without  the  knowledge  of  his  Informer,  that  he  might 
have  the  honour  of  a  New  fangled  notion,  sets  an  Undaunted  Operator  to 
work,  and  in  this  Country  about  290  were  inoculated."  3 

All  this  has  not.  deprived  Cotton  Mather  of  the  credit  of  sug- 

1  W.  Douglass's  Diss.  concerning  Inoc.,  p.  25.    Boston,  1730. 

2  Magnalia,  book  i.     "  The  Bostonian  Ebenezer." 
8  Diss.  concerning  Inoculation,  p.  2. 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  285 

gesting,  and  a  bold  and  intelligent  physician  of  the  honor  of 
carrying  out,  the  new  practice.  On  the  twenty-seventh  day  of 
June,  1721,  Zabdiel  Boylston,  of  Boston,  inoculated  his  only  son 
for  small-pox,  —  the  first  person  ever  submitted  to  the  operation 
in  the  New  World.  The  story  of  the  fierce  resistance  to  the  in 
troduction  of  the  practice ;  of  how  Boylston  was  mobbed,  and 
Mather  had  a  hand-grenade  thrown  in  at  his  window ;  of  how 
William  Douglass,  the  Scotchman,  "  always  positive,  and  some 
times  accurate,"  as  was  neatly  said  of  him,  at  once  depreciated 
the  practice  and  tried  to  get  the  credit  of  suggesting  it,  and 
Lawrence  Dalhonde,  the  Frenchman,  testified  to  its  destructive 
consequences ;  of  how  Edmund  Massey,  lecturer  at  St.  Albans, 
preached  against  sinfully  endeavoring  to  alter  the  course  of  nature 
by  presumptuous  interposition,  which  he  would  leave  to  the 
atheist  and  the  scoffer,  the  heathen  and  unbeliever,  while  in 
the  face  of  his  sermon,  afterwards  reprinted  in  Boston,  many  of 
our  New-England  clergy  stood  up  boldly  in  defence  of  the  prac 
tice,  —  all  this  has  been  told  so  well  and  so  often  that  I  spare  you 
its  details.  Set  this  good  hint  of  Cotton  Mather  against  that 
letter  of  his  to  John  Richards,  recommending  the  search  after 
vitch-marks,  and  the  application  of  the  water-ordeal,  which  means 
throw  your  grandmother  into  the  water,  if  she  has  a  mole  on  her 
arm ;  —  if  she  swims,  she  is  a  witch  and  must  be  hung ;  if  she 
sinks,  the  Lord  have  mercy  on  her  soul ! 

Thus  did  America  receive  this  great  discovery,  destined  to 
save  thousands  of  lives,  via  Boston,  from  the  hands  of  one  of  our 
own  Massachusetts  physicians. 

The  year  1735  was  rendered  sadly  memorable  by  the  epidemic 
of  the  terrible  disease  known  as  "  throat-distemper,"  and  regarded 
by  many  as  the  same  as  our  "  diphtheria."  Dr.  Holyoke  thinks 
the  more  general  use  of  mercurials  in  inflammatory  complaints 
dates  from  the  time  of  their  employment  in  this  disease,  in  which 
they  were  thought  to  have  proved  specially  useful.1 

At  some  time  in  the  course  of  this  century,  medical  practice 
had  settled  down  on  four  remedies  as  its  chief  reliance.  When 
Dr.  Holyoke,  nearly  seventy  years  ago,  received  young  Mr.  James 
Jackson  as  his  student,  he  pointed  to  the  labelled  drawers  and 
bottles  all  around  his  office,  —  for  he  was  his  own  apothecary,  — . 
l  Memoir  of  Edward  A.  Holyoke,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  p.  64.  Boston,  1829. 


286  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

and  said,  "  I  seem  to  have  here  a  great  number  and  variety  of 
medicines ;  but  I  may  name  four,  which  are  of  more  importance 
than  all  the  rest  put  together;  namely,  Mercury,  Antimony, 
Opium,  and  Peruvian  Bark."  l  I  doubt  if  either  of  them  remem 
bered,  that,  nearly  seventy  years  before  that,  in  1730,  Dr.  William 
Douglass,  the  disputatious  Scotchman,  mentioned  those  same  four 
remedies,  in  the  dedication  of  his  quarrelsome  essay  on  inocu 
lation,  as  the  most  important  ones  in  the  hands  of  the  physicians 
of  his  time. 

In  the  "  Proceedings"  of  this  Society  for  the  year  1863  is  a 
very  pleasant  paper  by  the  late  Dr.  Ephraim  Eliot,  giving  an 
account  of  the  leading  physicians  of  Boston  during  the  last 
quarter  of  the  last  century.  The  names  of  Lloyd,  Gardiner, 
Welsh,  Rand,  Bulfinch,  Danforth,  John  Warren,  Jeffries,  are  all 
famous  in  local  history,  and  are  commemorated  in  our  medical 
biographies.  One  of  them,  at  least,  appears  to  have  been  more 
widely  known,  not  only  as  one  of  the  first  aerial  voyagers,  but 
as  an  explorer  in  the  almost  equally  hazardous  realm  of  medical 
theory.  Dr.  John  Jeffries,  the  first  of  that  name,  is  considered  by 
Broussais  as  a  leader  of  medical  opinion  in  America,  and  so  re 
ferred  to  in  his  famous  "  Examen  des  Doctrines  Medicales." 

Two  great  movements  took  place  in  this  eighteenth  century, 
the  effect  of  which  has  been  chiefly  felt  in  our  own  time  ;  namely, 
the  establishment  of  the  Massachusetts  Medical  Society,  and  the 
founding  of  the  Medical  School  of  Harvard  University. 

The  third  century  of  our  medical  history  began  with  the  intro 
duction  of  the  second  great  medical  discovery  of  modern  times, 
—  of  all  time  up  to  that  date,  I  may  say,  — once  more  vid  Bos 
ton,  if  we  count  the  University  village  as  its  suburb,  and  once 
more  by  one  of  our  Massachusetts  physicians.  In  the  month  of 
July,  1800,  Dr.  Benjamin  Waterhouse,  of  Cambridge,  submitted 
four  of  his  own  children  to  the  new  process  of  vaccination,  —  the 
first  persons  vaccinated,  as  Dr.  Zabdiel  Boylston's  son  had  been 
the  first  person  inoculated  in  the  New  World. 

A  little  before  the  first  half  of  this  century  was  completed,  in 
the  autumn  of  1846,  that  great  discovery  went  forth  from  the 
Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  which  repaid  the  debt  of  America 

1  Another  Letter  to  a  Young  Physician,  p.  15. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  287 

to  the  science  of  the  Old  World,  and  gave  immortality  to  the 
place  of  its  origin  in  the  memory  and  the  heart  of  mankind. 
The  production  of  temporary  insensibility  at  will  —  tuto,  cito, 
jucunde,  safely,  quickly,  pleasantly — is  one  of  those  triumphs  over 
the  infirmities  of  our  mortal  condition  which  change  the  aspect 
of  life  ever  afterwards.  Rhetoric  can  add  nothing  to  its  glory ; 
gratitude,  and  the  pride  permitted  to  human  weakness,  that  our 
Bethlehem  should  have  been  chosen  as  the  birthplace  of  this 
new  embodiment  of  the  divine  mercy,  are  all  we  can  yet  find 
room  for. 

The  present  century  has  seen  the  establishment  of  all  those 
great  charitable  institutions  for  the  cure  of  diseases  of  the  body 
and  of  the  mind,  which  our  State  and  our  city  have  a  right  to 
consider  as  among  the  chief  ornaments  of  their  civilization. 

The  last  century  had  very  little  to  show,  in  our  State,  in  the 
way  of  medical  literature.  The  worthies  who  took  care  of  our 
grandfathers  and  great-grandfathers,  like  the  Revolutionary 
heroes,  fought  (with  disease)  and  bled  (their  patients)  and  died 
(in  spite  of  their  own  remedies) ;  but  their  names,  once  familiar, 
are  heard  only  at  rare  intervals.  Honored  in  their  day,  not  unre- 
membered  by  a  few  solitary  students  of  the  past,  their  memories 
are  going  sweetly  to  sleep  in  the  arms  of  the  patient  old  dry- 
nurse,  whose  "  black-drop  "  is  the  never-failing  anodyne  of  the 
restless  generations  of  men.  Except  the  lively  controversy  on 
inoculation,  and  floating  papers  in  journals,  we  have  not  much 
of  value  for  that  long  period,  in  the  shape  of  medical  records. 

But  while  the  trouble  with  the  last  century  is  to  find  authors 
to  mention,  the  trouble  of  this  would  be  to  name  all  that  we 
find.  Of  these,  a  very  few  claim  unquestioned  pre-eminence. 

Nathan  Smith,  born  in  Rehoboth,  Mass.,  a  graduate  of 
the  Medical  School  of  our  University,  did  a  great  work  for  the 
advancement  of  medicine  and  surgery  in  New  England,  by  his 
labors  as  teacher  and  author,  —  greater,  it  is  claimed  by  some,  than 
was  ever  done  by  any  other  man.  The  two  Warrens,  of  our 
time,  each  left  a  large  and  permanent  record  of  a  most  extended 
surgical  practice.  James  Jackson  not  only  educated  a  whole 
generation  by  his  lessons  of  wisdom,  but  bequeathed  some  of 
the  most  valuable  results  of  his  experience  to  those  who  came 
after  him,  in  a  series  of  letters  singularly  pleasant  and  kindly 


288  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

as  well  as  instructive.  John  Ware,  keen  and  cautious,  earnest 
and  deliberate,  wrote  the  two  remarkable  essays  which  have 
identified  his  name,  for  all  time,  with  two  important  diseases, 
on  which  he  has  shed  new  light  by  his  original  observations. 

I  must  do  violence  to  the  modesty  of  the  living  by  referring 
to  the  many  important  contributions  to  medical  science,  by 
Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow,  and  especially  to  his  discourse  on  "  Self-limited 
Diseases,"  an  address  which  can  be  read  in  a  single  hour,  but 
the  influence  of  which  will  be  felt  for  a  century. 

Nor  would  the  profession  forgive  me  if  I  forgot  to  mention 
the  admirable  museum  of  pathological  anatomy,  created  almost 
entirely  by  the  hands  of  Dr.  John  Barnard  Swett  Jackson, 
and  illustrated  by  his  own  printed  descriptive  catalogue, 
justly  spoken  of  by  a  distinguished  professor  in  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  as  the  most  important  contribution  which 
had  ever  been  made  to  the  branch  to  which  it  relates  in  this 
country. 

When  we  look  at  the  literature  of  mental  disease,  as  seen  in 
hospital  reports  and  special  treatises,  we  can  mention  the  names 
of  Wyman, Woodward,  Brigham,  Bell,  and  Ray,  all  either  natives 
of  Massachusetts  or  placed  at  the  head  of  her  institutions  for  the 
treatment  of  the  insane. 

We  have  a  right  to  claim  also  one  who  is  known  all  over  the 
civilized  world  as  a  philanthropist,  to  us  as  a  townsman  and  a 
graduate  of  our  own  Medical  School,  Dr.  Samuel  Gridley  Howe, 
the  guide  and  benefactor  of  a  great  multitude  who  were  born  to 
a  world  of  inward  or  of  outward  darkness. 

T  cannot  pass  over  in  silence  the  part  taken  by  our  own  phy 
sicians  in  those  sanitary  movements  which  are  assuming  every 
year  greater  importance.  Two  diseases  especially  have  attracted 
attention,  above  all  others,  with  reference  to  their  causes  and 
prevention  ;  cholera,  the  "  black  death  "  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  and  consumption,  the  white  plague  of  the  North,  both  of 
which  have  been  faithfully  studied  and  reported  on  by  physicians 
of  our  own  State  and  city.  The  cultivation  of  medical  and  sur 
gical  specialties,  which  is  fast  becoming  prevalent,  is  beginning 
to  show  its  effects  in  the  literature  of  the  profession,  which  is 
every  year  growing  richer  in  original  observations  and  investiga 
tions. 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  289 

To  these  benefactors,  who  have  labored  for  us  in  their  peace 
ful  vocation,  we  must  add  the  noble  army  of  surgeons,  who  went 
with  the  soldiers  who  fought  the  battles  of  their  country,  sharing 
many  of  their  dangers,  not  rarely  falling  victims  to  fatigue,  dis 
ease,  or  the  deadly  volleys  to  which  they  often  exposed  them 
selves  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties. 

The  pleasant  biographies  of  the  venerable  Dr.  Thacher,  and 
the  worthy  and  kind-hearted  gleaner,  Dr.  Stephen  W.  Williams, 
who  came  after  him,  are  filled  with  the  names  of  men  who 
served  their  generation  well,  and  rest  from  their  labors,  followed 
by  the  blessing  of  those  for  whom  they  endured  the  toils  and 
fatigues  inseparable  from  their  calling.  The  hard-working, 
intelligent,  country  physician  more  especially  deserves  the  grati 
tude  of  his  own  generation,  for  he  rarely  leaves  any  permanent 
record  in  the  literature  of  his  profession.  Books  are  hard  to 
obtain ;  hospitals,  which  are  always  centres  of  intelligence,  are 
remote ;  thoroughly  educated  and  superior  men  are  separated  by 
wide  intervals ;  and  long  rides,  though  favorable  to  reflection,  take 
up  much  of  the  time  which  might  otherwise  be  given  to  the 
labors  of  the  study.  So  it  is  that  men  of  ability  and  vast  experi 
ence,  like  the  late  Dr.  Twitchell,  for  instance,  make  a  great  and 
deserved  reputation,  become  the  oracles  of  large  districts,  and  yet 
leave  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing,  by  which  their  names  shall  be 
preserved  from  blank  oblivion. 

One  or  two  other  facts  deserve  mention,  as  showing  the  readi 
ness  of  our  medical  community  to  receive  and  adopt  any  impor 
tant  idea  or  discovery.  The  new  science  of  Histology,  as  it  is 
now  called,  was  first  brought  fully  before  the  profession  of  this 
country  by  the  translation  of  Bichat's  great  work,  "  Anatomic 
Ge"ne*rale,"  by  the  late  Dr.  George  Hayward. 

The  first  work  printed  in  this  country  on  Auscultation  —  that 
wonderful  art  of  discovering  disease,  which,  as  it  were,  puts  a 
window  in  the  breast,  through  which  the  vital  organs  can  be  seen, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  —  was  the  manual  published  anony 
mously  by  "  A  Member  of  the  Massachusetts  Medical  Society." 

We  are  now  in  some  slight  measure  prepared  to  weigh  the 
record  of  the  medical  profession  in  Massachusetts,  and  pass  our 
judgment  upon  it.  But  in  order  to  do  justice  to  the  first  genera- 

19 


290  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

tion  of  practitioners,  we  must  compare  what  we  know  of  their 
treatment  of  disease  with  the  state  of  the  art  in  England,  and 
the  superstitions  which  they  saw  all  around  them  in  other  depart 
ments  of  knowledge  or  belief. 

English  medical  literature  must  have  been  at  a  pretty  low  ebb 
when  Sydenham  recommended  Don  Quixote  to  Sir  Richard 
Blackmore  for  professional  reading.  The  College  Pharmaco 
poeia  was  loaded  with  the  most  absurd  compound  mixtures,  one 
of  the  most  complex  of  which  (the  same  which  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Harward,  "  Lecturer  at  the  Royal  Chappel  in  Boston  "  tried  to 
simplify)  was  not  dropped  until  the  year  1801.  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby  was  playing  his  fantastic  tricks  with  the  Sympathetic 
powder,  and  teaching  Governor  Winthrop,  the  second,  how  to 
cure  fever  and  ague,  which  some  may  like  to  know.  Pare  the 
patient's  nails ;  put  the  parings  in  a  little  bag,  and  hang  the  bag 
round  the  neck  of  a  live  eel,  and  put  him  in  a  tub  of  water.  The 
eel  will  die,  and  the  patient  will  recover.1 

Wiseman,  the  great  surgeon,  was  discoursing  eloquently  on 
the  efficacy  of  the  royal  touch  in  scrofula.2  The  founder  of  the 
Ashmolean  Museum  at  Oxford,  consorting  with  alchemists  and 
astrologers,  was  treasuring  the  manuscripts  of  the  late  pious 
Dr.  Richard  Napier,  in  which  certain  letters  (R  Ris)  were 
understood  to  mean  Responsum  Raphaelis,  —  the  answer  of  the 
angel  Raphael  to  the  good  man's  medical  questions.3  The 
illustrious  Robert  Boyle  was  making  his  collection  of  choice  and 
safe  remedies,  including  the  sole  of  an  old  shoe,4  the  thigh  bone 
of  a  hanged  man,6  and  things  far  worse  than  these,  as  articles  of 
his  materia  medica.  Dr.  Stafford,  whose  paper  of  directions 
to  his  "  friend,  Mr.  Wintrop,"  I  cited,  was  probably  a  man 
of  standing  in  London;  yet  toad-powder  was  his  sovereign 
remedy. 

See  what  was  the  state  of  belief  in  other  matters  among  the 
most  intelligent  persons  of  the  colonies,  —  magistrates  and 
clergymen.  Jonathan  Brewster,  son  of  the  church-elder,  writes 


1  Hist.  Coll.  3d  Series,  vol.  x. 

2  Several  Chirurgicall  Treatises,  p.  245.    London,  1676. 

8  Turner  (William),  Remarkable  Providences,  part  i.  chap.  2.    Also  referred  to  in 
Mather's  MS.  "  The  Angel  of  Bethesda." 

*  Medicinal  Experiments,  p.  105.    5th  edition.    London,  1712.        6  Ib.,  p.  105. 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  291 

the  wildest  letters  to  John  Winthrop  about  alchemy,  —  mad  for 
making  gold  as  the  Lynn  rock-borers  are  for  finding  it.1 

Remember  the  theology  and  the  diabology  of  the  time.  Mr. 
Cotton's  Theocracy  was  a  royal  government,  with  the  King  of 
kings  as  its  nominal  head,  but  with  an  upper  chamber  of  saints, 
and  a  tremendous  opposition  in  the  lower  house ;  the  leader  of 
which  may  have  been  equalled,  but  cannot  have  been  surpassed 
by  any  of  our  earth-born  politicians.  The  demons  were  prowl 
ing  round  the  houses  every  night,  as  the  foxes  were  sneaking 
about  the  hen-roosts.  The  men  of  Gloucester  fired  whole  flasks 
of  gunpowder  at  devils  disguised  as  Indians  and  Frenchmen.2 

How  deeply  the  notion  of  miraculous  interference  with  the 
course  of  nature  was  rooted,  is  shown  by  the  tenacity  of  the 
superstition  about  earthquakes.  We  can  hardly  believe  that 
our  Professor  Winthrop,  father  of  the  old  judge  and  the 
"  squire,"  whom  many  of  us  Cambridge  people  remember  so 
well,  had  to  defend  himself  against  the  learned  and  excellent  Dr. 
Prince,  of  the  Old  South  Church,  for  discussing  their  phenom 
ena  as  if  they  belonged  to  the  province  of  natural  science.3 

Not  for  the  sake  of  degrading  the  aspect  of  the  noble  men 
who  founded  our  State,  do  I  refer  to  their  idle  beliefs  and  painful 
delusions,  but  to  show  against  what  influences  the  common 
sense  of  the  medical  profession  had  to  assert  itself. 

Think,  then,  of  the  blazing  stars,  that  shook  their  horrid  hair 
in  the  sky ;  the  phantom  ship,  that  brought  its  message  direct 
from  the  other  world ; 4  the  story  of  the  mouse  and  the  snake  at 
Watertown  ;  5  of  the  mice  and  the  prayer-book  ;  6  of  the  snake 
in  church  ; 7  of  the  calf  with  two  heads ; 8  and  of  the  cabbage 
"  in  the  perfect  form  of  a  cutlash,"  9  —  all  which  innocent  oc 
currences  were  accepted  or  feared  as  alarming  portents. 

We  can  smile  at  these :  but  we  cannot  smile  at  the  account 
of  unhappy  Mary  Dyer's  malformed  offspring;10  or  of  Mrs. 

1  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  vii.  pp.  72,  77. 

2  Magnalia,  book  vii.  art.  18. 

8  Two  Lectures  on  Comets,  p.  vii.    Boston,  1811. 

«  Magnalia,  book  i.  chap.  6.    Winthrop,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  vol.  ii.  p.  328. 

5  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Winthrop,  p.  108. 

6  Winthrop,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  vol.  ii.  p.  20. 
1  Ib.,  vol.  ii.  p.  330. 

8  Mather  Papers  in  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  viii.  p.  614.  »  Ibid. 

M  Winthrop,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  vol.  i.  p.  261. 


292  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

Hutchinson's  domestic  misfortune  of  similar  character,1  in  the 
story  of  which  the  physician,  Dr.  John  Clark  of  Rhode  Island, 
alone  appears  to  advantage;  or  as  we  read  the  Rev.  Samuel 
Willard's  fifteen  alarming  pages  about  an  unfortunate  young 
woman  suffering  with  hysteria.2  Or  go  a  little  deeper  into 
tragedy,  and  see  poor  Dorothy  Talby,  mad  as  Ophelia,  first 
admonished,  then  whipped;  at  last,  taking  her  own  little 
daughter's  life ;  put  on  trial,  and  standing  mute,  threatened  to 
be  pressed  to  death,  confessing,  sentenced,  praying  to  be  be 
headed  ;  and  none  the  less  pitilessly  swung  from  the  fatal 
ladder.3 

The  cooper's  crazy  wife  —  crazy  in  the  belief  that  she  has 
committed  the  unpardonable  sin — tries  to  drown  her  child,  to 
save  it  from  misery;  and  the  poor  lunatic,  who  would  be 
tenderly  cared  for  to-day  in  a  quiet  asylum,  is  judged  to  be 
acting  under  the  instigation  of  Satan  himself.4  Yet,  after  all, 
what  can  we  say,  who  put  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  full  of 
nightmare  dreams  of  horror,  into  all  our  children's  hands;  a 
story  in  which  the  awful  image  of  the  man  in  the  cage  might 
well  turn  the  nursery  where  it  is  read  into  a  madhouse? 

The  miserable  delusion  of  witchcraft  illustrates,  in  a  still  more 
impressive  way,  the  false  ideas  which  governed  the  supposed 
relation  of  men  with  the  spiritual  world.  I  have  no  doubt 
many  physicians  shared  in  these  superstitions.  Mr.  Upham  says 
they  —  that  is,  some  of  them  —  were  in  the  habit  of  attributing 
their  want  of  success  to  the  fact,  that  an  "  evil  hand  "  was  on 
their  patient.5  The  temptation  was  strong,  no  doubt,  when 
magistrates  and  ministers  and  all  that  followed  their  lead  were 
contented  with  such  an  explanation.  But  how  was  it  in  Salem, 
according  to  Mr.  Upham's  own  statement  ?  Dr.  John  Swinner- 
ton  was,  he  says,  for  many  years  the  principal  physician  of 
Salem.6  And  he  says,  also,  "  The  Swinnerton  family  were  all 
along  opposed  to  Mr.  Parris,  and  kept  remarkably  clear  from 
the  witchcraft  delusion."7  Dr.  John  Swinnerton  —  the  same,  by 
the  way,  whose  memory  is  illuminated  by  a  ray  from  the  genius 

1  Winthrop,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  p.  271. 

2  Case  of  Elizabeth  Knapp,  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  viii.  p.  656. 
8  Winthrop,  Hist,  of  N.  E.,  vol.  i.  p.  279.          *  Ib.,  vol.  ii.  p.  65. 
»  Salem  Witchcraft,  vol.  ii.  p.  361.    Boston,  1867. 

*  Ib.,  vol.  i.  p.  140.  1  Ib.,  vol.  ii.  p.  495  (Supplement). 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  293 

of  Hawthorne  —  died  the  very  year  before  the  great  witchcraft 
explosion  took  place.  But  who  can  doubt  that  it  was  from  him 
that  the  family  had  learned  to  despise  and  to  resist  the  base 
superstition  ;  or  that  Bridget  Bishop,  whose  house  he  rented,  as 
Mr.  Upham  tells  me,  the  first  person  hanged  in  the  time  of  the 
delusion,  would  have  found  an  efficient  protector  in  her  tenant, 
had  he  been  living,  to  head  the  opposition  of  his  family  to  the 
misguided  clergymen  and  magistrates  ? 

I  cannot  doubt  that  our  early  physicians  brought  with  them 
many  Old- World  medical  superstitions,  and  I  have  no  question 
that  they  were  more  or  less  involved  in  the  prevailing  errors  of 
the  community  in  which  they  lived.  But,  on  the  whole,  their 
record  is  a  clean  one,  so  far  as  we  can  get  at  it ;  and  where  it  is 
questionable,  we  must  remember,  that  there  must  have  been 
many  little-educated  persons  among  them ;  and  that  all  must 
have  felt,  to  some  extent,  the  influence  of  those  sincere  and 
devoted  but  unsafe  men,  the  physic-practising  clergymen,  who 
often  used  spiritual  means  as  a  substitute  for  temporal  ones, 
who  looked  upon  a  hysteric  patient  as  possessed  by  the  devil,1 
and  treated  a  fractured  skull  by  prayers  and  plasters,  following 
the  advice  of  a  ruling  elder  in  opposition  to  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  seven  surgeons.2 

To  what  results  the  union  of  the  two  professions  was  liable  to 
lead,  may  be  seen  by  the  example  of  a  learned  and  famous  per 
son,  who  has  left  on  record  the  product  of  his  labors  in  the 
double  capacity  of  clergyman  and  physician. 

I  have  had  the  privilege  of  examining  a  manuscript  of  Cotton 
Mather's  relating  to  medicine,  by  the  kindness  of  the  librarian  of 
the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  to  which  society  it  belongs.  A 
brief  notice  of  this  curious  document  may  prove  not  uninteresting. 

It  is  entitled  "  The  Angel  of  Bethesda :  an  Essay  upon  the 
Common  Maladies  of  Mankind,  offering,  first,  the  sentiments  of 
Piety,"  &c.,  &c.,  and  "  a  collection  of  plain  but  potent  and 
Approved  REMEDIES  for  the  Maladies."  There  are  sixty-six 
"  Capsula's,"  as  he  calls  them,  or  chapters,  in  his  table  of  con 
tents;  of  which,  five  —  from  the  fifteenth  to  the  nineteenth, 
inclusive —  are  missing.  This  is  a  most  unfortunate  loss,  as  the 
eighteenth  capsula  treated  of  agues,  and  we  could  have  learned 

1  Ante,  p.  292.        2  Winthrop's  History,  vol.  ii.  p.  203.     The  child  recovered. 


294  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

from  it  something  of  their  degree  of  frequency  in  this  part  of 
New  England.  There  is  no  date  to  the  manuscript;  which, 
however,  refers  to  a  case  observed  Nov.  14,  1724. 

The  divine  takes  precedence  of  the  physician  in  this  extraor 
dinary  production.  He  begins  by  preaching  a  sermon  at  his 
unfortunate  patient.  Having  thrown  him  into  a  cold  sweat  by 
his  spiritual  sudorific,  he  attacks  him  with  his  material  remedies, 
which  are  often  quite  as  unpalatable.  The  simple  and  cleanly 
practice  of  Sydenham,  with  whose  works  he  was  acquainted, 
seems  to  have  been  thrown  away  upon  him.  Every  thing  he 
could  find  mentioned  in  the  seventy  or  eighty  authors  he  cites, 
all  that  the  old  women  of  both  sexes  had  ever  told  him  of,  gets 
into  his  text,  or  squeezes  itself  into  his  margin. 

Evolving  disease  out  of  sin,  he  hates  it,  one  would  say,  as  he 
hates  its  cause,  and  would  drive  it  out  of  the  body  with  all 
noisome  appliances.  "  Sickness  is  in  Fact  Flagellum  Dei  pro 
peccatis  mundi"  So  saying,  he  encourages  the  young  mother 
whose  babe  is  wasting  away  upon  her  breast  with  these  reflec 
tions  :  — 

"  Think  ;  oh  the  grievous  Effects  of  Sin  !  This  wretched  Infant  has 
not  arrived  unto  years  of  sense  enough,  to  sin  after  the  similitude  of  the 
transgression  committed  by  Adam.  Nevertheless  the  Transgression  of 
Adam,  who  had  all  mankind  Fcederally,  yea,  Naturally,  in  him,  has 
involved  this  Infant  in  the  guilt  of  it.  And  the  poison  of  the  old  serpent, 
which  infected  Adam  when  he  fell  into  his  Transgression,  by  hearkening 
to  the  Tempter,  has  corrupted  all  mankind,  and  is  a  seed  unto  such  diseases 
as  this  Infant  is  now  laboring  under.  Lord,  what  are  we,  and  what  are 
our  children,  but  a  Generation  of  Vipers  ?  " 

Many  of  his  remedies  are  at  least  harmless,  but  his  pedantry 
and  utter  want  of  judgment  betray  themselves  everywhere.  He 
piles  his  prescriptions  one  upon  another,  without  the  least  dis 
crimination.  He  is  run  away  with  by  all  sorts  of  fancies  and 
superstitions.  He  prescribes  euphrasia,  eyebright,  for  disease 
of  the  eyes ;  appealing  confidently  to  the  strange  old  doctrine  of 
signatures,  which  inferred  its  use  from  the  resemblance  of  its 
flower  to  the  organ  of  vision.  For  the  scattering  of  wens,  "  the 
efficacy  of  a  Dead  Hand  has  been  out  of  measure  wonderful." 
But  when  he  once  comes  to  the  odious  class  of  remedies,  he  revels 
in  them  like  a  scarabeus.  This  allusion  will  bring  us  quite  near 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  295 

enough  to  the  inconceivable  abominations  with  which  he  pro 
posed  to  outrage  the  sinful  stomachs  of  the  unhappy  confederates 
and  accomplices  of  Adam. 

It  is  well  that  the  treatise  was  never  printed,  yet  there  are 
passages  in  it  worth  preserving.  He  speaks  of  some  remedies 
which  have  since  become  more  universally  known  :  — 

"  Among  the  plants  of  our  soyl,  Sir  William  Temple  singles  out  Five 
[Six]  as  being  of  the  greatest  virtue  and  most  friendly  to  health  :  and  his 
favorite  plants,  Sage,  Rue,  Saffron,  Alehoof,  Garlick,  and  Elder." 

"  But  these  Five  [Six]  plants  may  admitt  of  some  competitors.  The 
QUINQUINA  —  How  celebrated  :  Immoderately,  Hyperbolically  cele 
brated  ! " 

Of  Ipecacuanha,  he  says,  — 

"  This  is  now  in  its  reign  ;  the  most  fashionable  vomit." 

"  I  am  not  sorry  that  antimonial  emetics  begin  to  be  disused." 

He  quotes  "  Mr.  Lock "  as  recommending  red  poppy-water 
and  abstinence  from  flesh  as  often  useful  in  children's  diseases. 

One  of  his  "  Capsula's  "  is  devoted  to  the  animalcular  origin 
of  diseases,  at  the  end  of  which  he  says,  speaking  of  remedies  for 
this  supposed  source  of  our  distempers  :  — 

"  Mercury  we  know  thee  :  But  we  are  afraid  thou  wilt  kill  us  too,  if  we 
employ  thee  to  kill  them  that  kill  us. 

"  And  yett,  for  the  cleansing  of  the  small  Blood  Vessels,  and  making 
way  for  the  free  circulation  of  the  Blood  and  Lymph  —  there  is  nothing 
like  Mercurial  Deobstruents." 

From  this  we  learn  that  mercury  was  already  in  common  use, 
and  the  subject  of  the  same  popular  prejudice  as  in  our  own 
time. 

His  poetical  turn  shows  itself  here  and  there :  — 

"  O  Nightingale,  with  a  Thorn  at  thy  Breast ;  Under  the  trouble  of  a 
Cough,  what  can  be  more  proper  than  such  thoughts  as  these  ?  "  .  .  . 

If  there  is  pathos  in  this,  there  is  bathos  in  his  apostrophe  to 
the  millipede,  beginning  "  Poor  sowbug ! "  and  eulogizing  the 
healing  virtues  of  that  odious  little  beast  ;  of  which  he  tells 
us  to  take  "  half  a  pound,  putt  'em  alive  into  a  quart  or  two  of 
wine,"  with  saffron  and  other  drugs,  and  take  two  ounces  twice 
a  day. 


296  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

The  "  Capsula  "  entitled  "  Nishmath  Chajim,"  was  printed  in 
1722,  at  New  London,  and  is  in  the  possession  of  our  own 
Society.  He  means,  by  these  words,  something  like  the  Archagus 
of  Van  Helmont,  of  which  he  discourses  in  a  style  wonderfully 
resembling  that  of  Mr.  Jenkinson,  in  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield." 

"  Many  of  the  Ancients  thought  there  was  much  of  a  Real  History  in 
the  Parable,  and  their  Opinion  was  that  there  is,  DIAPHORA  KATA  TAS 
MORPHAS,  A  Distinction  (and  so  a  Resemblance)  of  men  as  to  their 
Shapes  after  Death" 

And  so  on,  with  Irenaeus,  Tertullian,  Thespesius,  and  "  the  TA 
TONE  PSEUCONE  CROMATA,"  in  the  place  of  "  Sancomathon,  Manetlio, 
Berosus"  and  "  AnarcJion  ara  kai  ateleutaion  to  pan" 

One  other  passage  deserves  notice,  as  it  relates  to  the  single 
medical  suggestion  which  does  honor  to  Cotton  Mather's  memory. 
It  does  not  appear  that  he  availed  himself  of  the  information 
which  he  says  he  obtained  from  his  slave,  for  such  I  suppose  he 
was. 

In  his  appendix  to  "  Variola  Triumphatae,"  he  says, — 

"  There  has  been  a  wonderful  practice  lately  used  in  several  parts  of 
the  world,  which  indeed  is  not  yet  become  common  in  our  nation. 

"  I  was  first  informed  of  it  by  a  Garamantee  servant  of  my  own,  long 
before  I  knew  that  any  Europeans  or  Asiaticks  had  the  least  acquaintance 
with  it,  and  some  years  before  I  was  enriched  with  the  communications  of 
the  learned  Foreigners,  whose  accounts  I  found  agreeing  with  what  I 
received  of  my  servant,  when  he  shewed  me  the  Scar  of  the  Wound  made 
for  the  operation  ;  and  said,  That  no  person  ever  died  of  the  small-pox,  in 
their  couutrey,  that  had  the  courage  to  use  it. 

"  I  have  since  met  with  a  considerable  Number  of  these  Africans,  who 
all  agree  in  one  story ;  That  in  their  countrey  grandy-many  dy  of  the 
small-pox :  But  now  they  learn  this  way  :  people  take  juice  of  small-pox 
and  cutty-skin  and  put  in  a  Drop  ;  then  by  'nd  by  a  little  sicky,  sicky :  then 
very  few  little  things  like  small-pox  ;  and  nobody  dy  of  it ;  and  nobody 
have  small-pox  any  more.  Thus,  in  Africa,  where  the  poor  creatures  dy 
of  the  small-pox  like  Rotten  Sheep,  a  merciful  God  has  taught  them  an 
Infallible  preservative.  'Tis  a  common  practice,  and  is  attended  with  a 
constant  success." 

What  has  come  down  to  us  of  the  first  century  of  medical  prac 
tice,  in  the  hands  of  Winthrop  and  Oliver,  is  comparatively  simple 
and  reasonable.  I  suspect  that  the  conditions  of  rude,  stern  life, 
in  which  the  colonists  found  themselves  in  the  wilderness,  took  the 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  297 

nonsense  out  of  them,  as  the  exigencies  of  a  campaign  did  out 
of  our  physicians  and  surgeons  in  the  late  war.  Good  food  and 
enough  of  it,  pure  air  and  water,  cleanliness,  good  attendance, 
an  anaesthetic,  an  opiate,  a  stimulant,  quinine,  and  two  or  three 
common  drugs,  proved  to  be  the  marrow  of  medical  treatment ; 
and  the  fopperies  of  the  pharmacopoeia  went  the  way  of  em 
broidered  shirts  and  white  kid  gloves  and  malacca  joints,  in  their 
time  of  need.  "  Good  wine  is  the  best  cordiall  for  her,"  said 
Governor  John,  Junior,  to  Samuel  Symonds,  speaking  of  that 
gentleman's  wife, — just  as  Sydenham,  instead  of  physic,  once 
ordered  a  roast  chicken  and  a  pint  of  canary  for  his  patient  in 
male  hysterics. 

But  the  profession  of  medicine  never  could  reach  its  full  de 
velopment  until  it  became  entirely  separated  from  that  of  divinity. 
The  spiritual  guide,  the  consoler  in  affliction,  the  confessor  who 
is  admitted  into  the  secrets  of  our  souls,  has  his  own  noble  sphere 
of  duties ;  but  the  healer  of  men  must  confine  himself  solely  to 
the  revelations  of  God  in  nature,  as  he  sees  their  miracles  with 
his  own  eyes.  No  doctrine  of  prayer  or  special  providence  is 
to  be  his  excuse  for  not  looking  straight  at  secondary  causes,  and 
acting,  exactly  so  far  as  experience  justifies  him,  as  if  he  were 
himself  the  divine  agent  which  antiquity  fabled  him  to  be. 
While  pious  men  were  praying  —  humbly,  sincerely,  rightly,  ac 
cording  to  their  knowledge  —  over  the  endless  succession  of  little 
children  dying  of  spasms  in  the  great  Dublin  Hospital,  a  saga 
cious  physician  knocked  some  holes  in  the  walls  of  the  ward,  let 
God's  blessed  air  in  on  the  little  creatures,  and  so  had  already 
saved  in  that  single  hospital,  as  it  was  soberly  calculated  thirty 
years  ago,  more  than  sixteen  thousand  lives  of  these  infant  heirs 
of  immortality.1 

Let  it  be,  if  you  will,  that  the  wise  inspiration  of  the  physician 
was  granted  in  virtue  of  the  clergyman's  supplications.  Still, 
the  habit  of  dealing  with  things  seen,  generates  another  kind  of 
knowledge,  and  another  way  of  thought,  from  that  of  dealing  with 
things  unseen ;  which  knowledge  and  way  of  thought  are  special 
means  granted  by  Providence,  and  to  be  thankfully  accepted. 

The  medieval  ecclesiastics  expressed  a  great  truth  in  that  say- 

l  Collins's  Midwifery,  p.  312.  Published  by  order  of  the  Massachusetts  Medical 
Society.  Boston,  1841. 


298  THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

ing,  so  often  quoted,  as  carrying  a  reproach  with  it :  "  Ubi  tres 
medicij  duo  athei"  —  "Where  there  are  three  physicians,  there 
are  two  atheists." 

It  was  true  then,  it  is  true  to-day,  that  the  physician  very  com 
monly,  if  not  very  generally,  denies  and  repudiates  the  deity  of 
ecclesiastical  commerce.  The  Being  whom  Ambroise  Pare  meant 
when  he  spoke  those  memorable  words,  which  you  may  read 
over  the  professor's  chair  in  the  French  School  of  Medicine,  — 
"  Je  le  pensay,  et  Dieu  le  guarit"  —  "I  dressed  his  wound,  and 
God  healed  it," — is  a  different  being  from  the  God  that  scholastic 
theologians  have  projected  from  their  consciousness,  or  shaped 
even  from  the  sacred  pages  which  have  proved  so  plastic  in  their 
hands.  He  is  a  God  who  never  leaves  himself  without  witness, 
who  repenteth  him  of  the  evil,  who  never  allows  a  disease  or  an 
injury,  compatible  with  the  enjoyment  of  life,  to  take  its  course 
without  establishing  an  effort, — limited  by  certain  fixed  conditions, 
it  is  true,  but  an  effort,  always,  to  restore  the  broken  body  or  the 
shattered  mind.  In  the  perpetual  presence  of  this  great  Healing 
Agent,  who  stays  the  bleeding  of  wounds,  who  knits  the  fractured 
bone,  who  expels  the  splinter  by  a  gentle  natural  process,  who 
walls  in  the  inflammation  that  might  involve  the  vital  organs, 
who  draws  a  cordon  to  separate  the  dead  part  from  the  living, 
who  sends  his  three  natural  anaesthetics  to  the  overtasked  frame 
in  due  order,  according  to  its  need,  —  sleep,  fainting,  death ;  in 
this  perpetual  presence,  it  is  doubtless  hard  for  the  physician  to 
realize  the  theological  fact  of  a  vast  and  permanent  sphere  of  the 
universe,  where  no  organ  finds  itself  in  its  natural  medium,  where 
no  wound  heals  kindly,  where  the  executive  has  abrogated  the 
pardoning  power,  and  mercy  forgets  its  errand;  where  the  om 
nipotent  is  unfelt  save  in  malignant  agencies,  and  the  omnipresent 
is  unseen  and  unrepresented ;  hard  to  accept  the  God  of  Dante's 
Inferno,  and  of  Bunyan's  caged  lunatic.  If  this  is  atheism,  call 
three,  instead  of  two  of  the  trio,  atheists,  and  it  will  probably 
come  nearer  the  truth. 

I  am  not  disposed  to  deny  the  occasional  injurious  effect  of 
the  materializing  influences  to  which  the  physician  is  subjected. 
A  spiritual  guild  is  absolutely  necessary  to  keep  him,  to  keep  us 
all,  from  becoming  the  "  fingering  slaves"  that  Wordsworth  treats 
with  such  shrivelling  scorn.  But  it  is  well  that  the  two  callings 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  299 

have  been  separated,  and  it  is  fitting  that  they  remain  apart.  In 
settling  the  affairs  of  the  late  concern,  I  am  afraid  our  good 
friends  remain  a  little  in  our  debt.  We  lent  them  our  physician 
Michael  Servetus  in  fair  condition,  and  they  returned  him  so 
damaged  by  fire,  as  to  be  quite  useless  for  our  purposes.  Their 
Reverend  Samuel  Willard  wrote  us  a  not  overwise  report  of  a  case 
of  hysteria ;  and  our  Jean  Astruc  gave  them  (if  we  may  trust  Dr. 
Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible)  the  first  discerning  criticism  on 
the  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch.  Our  John  Locke  enlightened 
them  with  his  letters  concerning  toleration;  and  their  Cotton 
Mather  obscured  our  twilight  with  his  Nishmatk  Chajim. 

Yet  we  must  remember  that  the  name  of  Basil  Valentine,  the 
monk,  is  associated  with  whatever  good  and  harm  we  can  ascribe 
to  antimony ;  and  that  the  most  remarkable  of  our  specifics  long 
bore  the  name  of  "  Jesuit's  Bark,"  from  an  old  legend  connected 
with  its  introduction.  "  Frere  Jacques,"  who  taught  the  lithot- 
o mists  of  Paris,  owes  his  ecclesiastical  title  to  courtesy,  as  he  did 
not  belong  to  a  religious  order. 

Medical  science,  and  especially  the  study  of  mental  disease, 
is  destined,  I  believe,  to  react  to  much  greater  advantage  on 
the  theology  of  the  future  than  theology  has  acted  on  medicine 
in  the  past.  The  liberal  spirit  very  generally  prevailing  in  both 
professions,  and  the  good  understanding  between  their  most  en 
lightened  members,  promise  well  for  the  future  of  both  in  a 
community  which  holds  every  point  of  human  belief,  every  in 
stitution  in  human  hands,  and  every  word  written  in  a  human 
dialect,  open  to  free  discussion  to-day,  to-morrow,  and  to  the  end 
of  time.  Whether  the  world  at  large  will  ever  be  cured  of 
trusting  to  specifics  as  a  substitute  for  observing  the  laws  of 
health,  and  to  mechanical  or  intellectual  formulas  as  a  substitute 
for  character,  may  admit  of  question.  Quackery  and  idolatry 
are  all  but  immortal. 

We  can  find  most  of  the  old  beliefs  alive  amongst  us  to-day, 
only  having  changed  their  dresses  and  the  social  spheres  in  which 
they  thrive.  We  think  the  quarrels  of  Galenists  and  chemists 
belong  to  the  past,  forgetting  that  Thomsonisrn  has  its  numerous 
apostles  in  our  community ;  that  it  is  common  to  see  remedies 
vaunted  as  purely  vegetable,  and  that  the  prejudice  against  "min 
eral  poisons,"  especially  mercury,  is  as  strong  in  many  quarters 


300  THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION   IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

now  as  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Names  are  only  air,  and  blow  away  with  a  change  of  wind ;  but 
beliefs  are  rooted  in  human  wants  and  weakness,  and  die  hard. 
The  oaks  of  Dodona  are  prostrate,  and  the  shrine  of  Delphi  is  des 
olate;  but  the  Pythoness  and  the  Sibyl  may  be  consulted  in 
Lowell  Street  for  a  very  moderate  compensation.  Nostradamus 
and  Lilly  seem  impossible  in  our  time ;  but  we  have  seen  the 
advertisements  of  an  astrologer  in  our  Boston  papers  year  after 
year,  which  seems  to  imply  that  he  found  believers  and  patrons. 
You  smiled  when  I  related  Sir  Kenelm  Digby's  prescription  with 
the  live  eel  in  it;  but  if  each  of  you  were  to  empty  his  or  her  pocket, 
would  there  not  roll  out  a  horse-chestnut  from  more  than  one  of 
them,  carried  about  as  a  cure  for  rheumatism?  The  brazen 
head  of  Roger  Bacon  is  mute ;  but  is  not  "  Planchette  "  uttering 
her  responses  in  a  hundred  houses  of  this  city  ?  We  think  of 
palmistry  or  chiromancy  as  belonging  to  the  days  of  Albertus 
Magnus,  or,  if  existing  in  our  time,  as  given  over  to  the  gypsies ; 
but  a  very  distinguished  person  has  recently  shown  me  the  line 
of  life,  and  the  line  of  fortune,  on  the  palm  of  his  hand,  with  a 
seeming  confidence  in  the  sanguine  predictions  of  his  career 
which  had  been  drawn  from  them.  What  shall  we  say  of  the 
plausible  and  well-dressed  charlatans  of  our  own  time,  who 
trade  in  false  pretences,  like  Nicholas  Knapp  of  old,  but  without 
any  fear  of  being  fined  or  whipped;  or  of  the  many  follies 
and  inanities,  imposing  on  the  credulous  part  of  the  community, 
each  of  them  gaping  with  eager,  open  mouth  for  a  gratuitous 
advertisement  by  the  mention  of  its  foolish  name  in  any  respect 
able  connection  ? 

I  turn  from  this  less  pleasing  aspect  of  the  common  intelli 
gence  which  renders  such  follies  possible,  to  close  the  honorable 
record  of  the  medical  profession  in  this  our  ancient  Common 
wealth. 

We  have  seen  it  in  the  first  century  divided  among  clergymen, 
magistrates,  and  regular  practitioners ;  yet,  on  the  whole,  for  the 
time,  and  under  the  circumstances,  respectable,  except  where  it  in 
voked  supernatural  agencies  to  account  for  natural  phenomena. 

In  the  second  century  it  simplified  its  practice,  educated  many 
intelligent  practitioners,  and  began  the  work  of  organizing  for 
concerted  action,  and  for  medical  teaching. 


THE   MEDICAL   PROFESSION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS.  301 

In  this,  our  own  century,  it  has  built  hospitals,  perfected  and 
multiplied  its  associations  and  educational  institutions,  enlarged 
and  created  museums,  and  challenged  a  place  in  the  world  of 
science  by  its  literature. 

In  reviewing  the  whole  course  of  its  history  we  read  a  long  list 
of  honored  names,  and  a  precious  record  written  in  private 
memories,  in  public  charities,  in  permanent  contributions  to 
medical  science,  in  generous  sacrifices  for  the  country.  We  can 
point  to  our  capital  as  the  port  of  entry  for  the  New  World 
of  the  great  medical  discoveries  of  two  successive  centuries,  and 
we  can  claim  for  it  the  triumph  over  the  most  dreaded  foe  that 
assails  the  human  body,  —  a  triumph  which  the  annals  of  the  race 
can  hardly  match  in  three  thousand  years  of  medical  history. 


EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS. 


By    SAMUEL    ELIOT,    LL.D. 


EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS. 


T  AST  New  Year's,  a  general  of  the  United-States  army  sends 
•*— '  a  despatch  from  the  field  to  his  commanding  general,  say 
ing  that  the  destruction  of  a  Comanche  village,  on  Christmas  Day, 
had  given  the  final  blow  to  the  Indian  rebellion ;  that  the  tribes 
were  in  mourning  for  their  losses,  the  people  starving,  their 
dogs  eaten,  and  no  buffalo  remaining.  Such  is  the  soldier's  view 
of  the  situation.  The  Indian's  may  be  easily  conceived.  Could 
he  read  Tacitus,  he  would  perhaps  repeat  the  complaint  of  the 
British  chieftain  against  the  Romans :  Ubi  solitudinem  faciunt, 
pacem  appellant. 

If  these  are  our  relations  with  the  Indians  within  our  borders ; 
if  a  nation  which  has  mastered  a  continent,  absorbed  emigrants 
from  every  civilized  race,  and  from  some  races  not  civilized, 
which  has  driven  slavery  back  into  the  past,  and  thrown  open 
the  future  to  liberty,  is  still  doomed  to  struggle  with  a  handful 
of  savages,  we  shall  not  expect,  in  turning  back  the  pages  of 
our  history  two  centuries  and  more,  to  find  the  early  relations 
of  our  forefathers  with  their  Indian  neighbors  all  that  they 
or  their  descendants  could  desire.  The  Indians,  now  a  remote 
minority,  were  then  a  hard-pressing  majority  of  the  American 
population ;  the  country,  now  ours,  was  then  theirs ;  all  that  long 
settlement  and  immemorial  possession  can  confer  in  the  way  of 
security,  then  inured  to  their  advantage,  as  it  now  inures  to  ours ; 
and  he  would  have  been  a  far-seeing  prophet  whose  eye  could 
pierce  beyond  the  clouds  then  lowering  upon  the  English  fron 
tier,  and  predict  with  any  degree  of  assurance  that  successive 
suns  would  ever  dispel  them. 

Of  all  the  difficulties  attending  the  colonization  of  these 

20 


306  EARLY   RELATIONS   WITH   THE   INDIANS. 

shores,  all  the  perplexities  which  the  colonists  brought  with  them, 
all  their  uncertainties  of  purpose,  all  their  conflicts  of  jurisdic 
tion  ;  or,  again,  of  all  the  difficulties  they  found  here,  whether 
arising  from  the  loneliness  and,  in  a  human  point  of  view,  the 
helplessness  of  their  position,  whether  caused  by  the  hardness  of 
the  soil,  the  severity  of  the  climate,  or  any  other  privation  and 
anxiety  inseparable  from  their  lot,  —  the  difficulty  of  dealing  wise 
ly,  religiously,  and  successfully  with  the  red  men  was  the  great 
est.  Could  they  have  solved  it,  they  would  have  been  more  than 
mortal.  That  they  should  even  have  attempted  to  solve  it,  and 
that  the  attempt  should  have  been  to  any  extent  .successful,  im 
plies  a  spirit  and  a  power  on  their  part  which  we  have  every 
reason  to  hold  in  reverent  remembrance. 

As  seen  from  the  mother  country,  the  problem  appeared  com 
paratively  simple.  When  King  James  issued  the  patent  of 
Virginia  in  1606,  he  foresees,  or  pretends  to  foresee,  that  the 
enterprise  in  which  his  subjects  had  engaged,  might  hereafter  tend 
to  the  glory  of  God  in  propagating  the  Christian  religion  to  peo 
ple  as  yet  in  darkness  and  ignorance.  It  was  much  easier  for  a 
king  like  James  to  make  a  prediction  than  to  contribute  to  its 
fulfilment.  Missionary  work  of  any  kind  lay  far  beyond  his 
sphere  of  action ;  missionary  work  of  such  a  kind  as  Virginia 
required  lay  far  beyond  his  sphere  of  thought.  It  is  as  hard  to 
conceive  of  him  at  the  head  of  a  mission  to  the  Indians,  as  to 
imagine  Dominie  Sampson  leading  the  British  charge  at  Waterloo. 
His  son,  Charles  L,  was  a  monarch  of  a  more  missionary  mould. 
Whatever  his  faults,  they  did  not  consist  in  a  want  of  sincere  rev 
erence  toward  God,  or  of  an  equally  sincere  regard  for  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  his  fellow-beings.  Could  he  have  risen  to  the  height  of 
the  work  which  he  might  have  furthered  in  behalf  of  the  Indians 
here,  instead  of  plunging  into  the  stormy  contests  of  prerogative 
and  the  fathomless  agonies  of  civil  war,  his  reign  might  have  had 
a  different  course,  and  his  life  a  different  end.  But  the  conver 
sion  of  the  American  Indian  was  an  even  more  impracticable 
undertaking  for  Charles  than  the  subjection  of  the  English  free 
man.  He  was  content  to  leave  it  to  the  colonists  themselves ; 
and  we  can  find  no  deeper  trace  of  his  interest  in  the  cause  than 
in  the  words  of  the  Massachusetts  charter,  where  it  is  asserted 
that  the  conversion  of  the  natives  "  in  our  Royal  intention,  and 


'EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS.  307 

the  Adventurer's  free  profession  is  the  principal  end  of  this  plan 
tation." 

Fifteen  years  later,  when  Charles  must  have  long  since  forgot 
ten  his  royal  intentions,  or,  at  any  rate,  despaired  of  carrying 
them  out,  and  at  the  height  of  the  conflict  between  him  and  his 
subjects  in  England,  in  the  year  1644,  Master  William  Castell, 
parson  of  Courtenhall,  in  the  County  of  Northampton,  presents 
a  petition  to  the  "  High  Court  of  Parliament  for  the  Propagating 
of  the  Gospel  in  America."  After  stating  the  necessity  of  the 
andertaking,  he  dwells  upon  the  easiness  of  effecting  it,  and  ex 
plains  its  long  delay  by  showing  how  the  English  have  placed 
themselves  too  much  in  the  skirts  of  the  Continent,  as  in  New 
England ;  or  how  they  have  suffered  from  the  want  of  "  able  and 
conscionable  ministers,"  as  in  Virginia,  where  they  are  "  more 
likely,"  as  he  thinks,  "  to  turn  heathen  than  to  turn  others  to  the 
Christian  faith."  The  petition,  drawn  up  in  his  name,  is  signed 
by  Churchmen,  Presbyterians,  and  Scotch  Covenanters,  for  once 
united  in  a  religious  purpose,  and  that  in  the  full  violence  of 
civil  war.  It  was  a  beautiful  omen;  but  no  omens,  however 
beautiful,  are  enough  to  bring  to  a  successful  issue  a  labor 
depending  upon  action  long  sustained,  and  sacrifice  unmeasured 
to  the  last.  Nor  would  the  conversion  of  the  Indians  have  fol 
lowed  as  a  matter  of  course,  could  the  hindrances  to  which 
Master  Castell  alludes,  have  been  removed,  and  the  English  set 
tlers  penetrating  farther  into  the  interior,  or  obtaining  the  assist 
ance  of  better  ministers,  placed  themselves  in  a  situation  where, 
according  to  his  opinion,  their  success  as  missionaries  would 
have  been  easy.  In  truth,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  easiness 
in  connection  with  the  Indian  missions,  except  as  these  were 
seen  from  across  the  seas. 

Their  aspect  on  this  side  was  very  different.  The  first  view 
revealed  the  alarming  fact,  that  the  relations  between  the  Eng 
lish  and  the  Indians  were  not  to  originate  in  any  course  upon 
which  the  former  could  determine.  The  case  was,  so  to  speak, 
prejudged,  at  least  to  a  considerable  degree,  by  events  which  had 
occurred  before  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth.  As  early  as 
the  year  1614,  the  master  of  a  ship  in  Captain  John  Smith's  ex 
pedition  "  stayed  to  fit  for  Spain  with  the  dried  Fish ; "  and,  not 
content  with  this  cargo,  he  took  on  board  another,  consisting  of 


808  EARLY   RELATIONS   WITH   THE   INDIANS. 

four-and-twenty  "  Poore  Salvages,"  whom  he  carried  to  Malaga, 
and  there  attempted  to  sell  into  slavery.  The  greater  part  were 
rescued  by  some  Spanish  friars,  who  treated  them  as  brethren, 
and  taught  them  their  faith.  Some  time  after,  and  not  long 
before  the  arrival  of  the  "  Mayflower,"  another  English  captain 
enticed  a  band  of  Indians  on  board  his  vessel,  and  there  opened 
fire  upon  them,  without  any  provocation,  of  which  we  can  now 
learn.  It  seemed  strange  to  the  Plymouth  colonists  that  more 
than  three  months  should  elapse  after  their  arrival,  before  the 
Indians  appeared.  As  soon  as  any  came,  they  told  the  story  of 
what  had  been  done  to  their  countrymen,  and  it  was  then  dear 
why  they  had  been  so  long  in  coming.  "  By  all  which,  it  may 
appear,"  says  Governor  Bradford,  "  how  far  these  people  were 
from  peace,  and  with  what  danger  this  plantation  was  begun." 

Two  years  later,  Massasoit,  then  on  his  sick-bed,  revealed  to 
his  visitors  from  Plymouth  the  existence  of  a  conspiracy,  by 
which  it  was  proposed  to  sweep  away  the  whole  line  of  English 
settlements  on  the  Massachusetts  shore.  This  arose  among  the 
Indians  at  Wessaguscus,  now  Weymouth,  where  a  party  of 
adventurers  had  landed,  a  few  months  before,  and  presently  sunk 
so  low  as  to  deserve  not  only  the  hatred  but  the  scorn  of  the 
Indians  near  them.  "  So  base  were  they,"  says  Governor  Brad 
ford,  as  to  become  "  servants  to  the  Indians,  and  would  cut 
them  wood  and  fetch  them  water  for  a  cap  full  of  corn,"  while 
"  others  fell  to  plain  stealing  both  night  and  day."  Such  was  the 
effect  of  this  reckless  degradation  upon  the  savages,  that  they 
resolved  to  destroy  the  settlement;  and  to  take  care  that  no 
revenge  should  follow  from  the  English  at  Plymouth,  the  Wey 
mouth  Indians  urged  Massasoit  to  join  them,  and  to  strike  the 
same  blow  against  his  neighbors  that  they  were  to  strike  against 
theirs.  In  disclosing  the  danger,  he  advised  his  friends  at  Ply 
mouth  to  lose  no  time  in  seizing  some  of  the  Weymouth  chiefs, 
whose  capture  would  be  followed  by  the  submission  of  their  tribe. 
Miles  Standish  was  thereupon  despatched  with  a  party  of  sol 
diers,  and,  in  an  encounter  with  the  Indians,  seven  of  their  num 
ber  were  slain,  and  the  remainder  driven  into  the  interior; 
while  the  English  there  were  assisted  to  embark  and  leave  the 
spot  where  they  had  been  so  near  to  death.  It  was  concerning 
the  seven  Indians  who  fell  in  this  conflict,  that  John  Robinson 


EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS.  309 

wrote  the  often-quoted  words :  "  Oh,  how  happy  a  thing  had  it 
been,  if  you  had  converted  some  before  you  had  killed  any ! "  So 
Cotton  said,  afterwards,  to  the  colonists  of  Massachusetts  Bay : 
"  Offend  not  the  poor  natives ;  but  as  you  partake  in  their  land, 
so  make  them  partakers  of  your  precious  faith  ;  as  you  reap  their 
temporals,  so  feed  them  with  your  spirituals."  But  both  Robin 
son  and  Cotton  were  where  these  things  looked  very  differently 
from  what  they  did  here. 

To  establish  such  relations  with  the  Indians  as  they  desired, 
was  not  therefore  in  our  fathers'  power.  The  enemy  was  before 
them,  and  after  them,  with  his  tares.  It  was  no  fault  of  theirs 
that  the  natives  had  been  carried  into  slavery,  or  put  to  death 
by  English  sailors ;  no  fault  of  theirs  that  English  adventurers 
should  have  stolen  from  the  natives,  or  degraded  themselves  in 
the  natives'  eyes ;  and  yet  they  suffered  as  much  from  these  sad 
incidents  as  if  they  themselves  had  been  the  aggressors.  The 
dragon's  teeth  were  sown  for  them,  not  by  them,  but  the  armed 
men  were  just  as  sure  to  spring  up.  Oh  that  the  pure  principles 
of  Plymouth  or  of  Massachusetts  could  have  reached  the  Indians 
without  the  intervention  of  alien  crimes! 

The  circumstances  upon  which  we  have  been  dwelling  are  ex 
ternal  ;  there  are  some  internal  to  be  remarked.  From  the  mo 
ment  that  the  Englishman  landed  upon  our  soil,  the  Indians  were 
objects  of  apprehension  ;  he  knew  nothing  of  their  numbers,  noth 
ing  of  their  situation,  except  that  they  bordered  close  upon  his 
dwelling,  and  might  at  any  time  descend  upon  it  with  the  war- 
whoop  ;  he  knew  nothing  of  the  country  itself,  of  its  extent,  its 
divisions,  or  its  resources  ;  and  his  ignorance,  both  with  regard 
to  the  inhabitants  and  their  territory,  must  have  made  him  feel 
as  if  they  were  very  strong  and  he  very  weak  in  any  human  con 
trast.  One  of  the  four-and-twenty  slaves  taken  to  Spain,  found 
his  way  back  to  his  own  land  ;  and  he  was  so  forgiving  as  to  help 
the  Plymouth  settlers  in  setting  their  com,  taking  their  h'sh  and 
procuring  other  supplies.  The  incident  is  very  suggestive  ;  for 
it  shows  how  much  the  English  needed  to  make  friends  with  the 
Indian,  how  much,  therefore,  they  would  be  moved  by  selfish  as 
well  as  unselfish  considerations  to  live  on  friendly  terms  with 
him.  A  race  of  untold  capacity  for  good  or  for  evil  could  not 
but  excite  the  anxiety  of  the  New-England  pioneers. 


310  EARLY   RELATIONS  WITH   THE   INDIANS. 

As  time  passed,  and  the  Indians  were  found  less  formidable 
than  they  had  at  first  appeared,  the  feeling  of  apprehension  was 
displaced  by  another  feeling,  yet  more  threatening  to  the  estab 
lishment  of  serviceable  relations  between  the  two  races.  The 
white  man  began  to  despise  the  red  man  :  he  found  him  treacher 
ous,  irresolute,  incapable  of  industry,  unequal  to  the  shock  of 
arms,  a  creature  of  inferior  energies  as  well  as  of  inferior  aspira 
tions  to  his  own.  He  used  harsh  language  in  speaking  of  him ; 
he  put  on  a  scornful  manner  in  dealing  with  him  ;  he  thought 
him  unworthy  of  the  consideration  which  he  gave  to  any  other 
human  being,  and  sometimes  even  unworthy  of  that  which  he 
gave  to  the  brute.  Daniel  Gookin,  for  many  years  superinten 
dent  of  the  converted  Indians  in  Massachusetts,  speaks  of  them 
as  "  not  many  degrees  above  beasts."  '  John  Eliot,  whose  self- 
denying  labors  are  familiar  as  household  words,  —  whose  life  of 
sacrifice  and  endurance,  in  behalf  of  the  truth,  is  like  a  pillar  of 
fire  by  night  amid  many  a  dark  passage  of  our  early  annals,  whose 
heart  knew  no  distinction  between  the  Indian  and  the  Englishman 
as  followers  of  the  Saviour,  —  can  speak  of  the  people  for  whom 
he  labored  unto  death,  "  as  the  dregs  of  mankind."  If  men  like 
Gookin  and  Eliot  described  the  red  men  in  such  terms  as  these, 
what  must  the  rude  colonists,  the  men  of  war  or  of  intrigue, 
have  said  to  express  the  scorn  with  which  they  regarded  their 
enemies  or  their  victims  among  the  Indians  ? 

Thus  while  distance  lent  enchantment  to  the  view  of  the 
American  tribes,  roaming  in  a  sort  of  heroic  simplicity  through 
their  native  forests,  and  only  waiting  for  a  missionary  to  speak 
the  word  that  should  give  them  the  Christian  faith,  nearness 
excited  very  different  emotions ;  and  the  colonists  passed  from 
apprehension  to  contempt,  and  perhaps  back  again,  in  states  of 
mind  which  boded  any  thing  but  good  to  the  Indians.  The 
hills  we  see  in  the  distance,  soft  with  haze  and  responsive  to 
every  passing  shadow,  are  not  more  unlike  the  hills  we  climb 
with  panting  breast  and  weary  foot,  than  were  the  natives 
of  this  soil,  as  seen  from  across  the  ocean,  objects  of  ten 
der  sympathy  and  promise;  but  as  seen  on  the  soil  itself, 
objects  of  terror  and  abhorrence.  It  is  not  strange  that  a 
Martha's  Vineyard  sagamore  should  have  told  the  Missionary 
Mayhew,  in  the  year  1646,  "  He  wondered  the  English  should 


EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS.  311 

be  almost  thirty  years  in  the  country,  and  the  Indians  fools 
still." 

To  make  them  wise,  the  first  requisite  was  a  willingness  to 
teach  them ;  and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  could  not  come  without 
an  effort.  To  convert  the  Indians,  the  English  needed  to  con 
vert  themselves.  But  to  turn  one's  own  heart,  is  a  far  harder 
thing  than  to  turn,  or  try  to  turn,  another's ;  and  so  many  of  the 
colonists  found  it,  in  endeavoring  to  form  any  satisfactory  rela 
tions  between  themselves  and  the  Indians.  "  Those  that  labor 
in  this  harvest,"  says  Daniel  Gookin,  "  are  first  to  endeavor  to 
learn  perfectly  that  first  lesson  in  Christ's  school,  —  I  mean  self- 
denial." 

The  teacher  being  ready,  the  next  requisite  was  a  proper 
mode  of  teaching.  This,  too,  was  no  light  thing  to  hit  upon. 
For  such  instruction  as  the  American  savage  required,  the  Eng 
lishman  had  never  received  a  training,  nor  did  he  now  see 
plainly  where  to  seek  it.  Even  the  Bible,  on  which  he  leaned 
for  support  in  all  other  emergencies,  seemed  to  fail  him  in  this, 
particularly  if  he  turned  to  the  Old  Testament,  as  was  the 
Puritan's  wont,  for  any  historical  precedent. 

"  Like  some  watcher  of  the  skies, 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken," 

the  colonist  found  himself  in  presence  of  a  race  whose  peculi 
arities  demanded  peculiar,  and  in  many  respects  original,  treat 
ment. 

The  earliest  experiment  was  made,  in  a  treaty  between  the 
Plymouth  colony  and  Massasoit,  in  March,  1621.  It  was  so  far 
successful  as  to  last  for  upwards  of  half  a  century ;  a  long 
duration  for  treaties  of  that  period,  even  between  European 
States.  But  the  experiment  was  not  at  all  comprehensive.  It 
aimed  at  benefiting  the  English  rather  than  the  Indians,  for 
whose  conversion  or  civilization  it  contained  no  provision. 

From  the  treaty  of  1621,  we  follow  a  gradual  advance  in  the 
methods  of  dealing  with  the  Indians,  till  we  reach  the  legislation 
of  Massachusetts,  in  1646.  On  the  4th  of  November,  in  that 
year,  a  series,  it  might  almost  be  called  a  code,  of  laws  in  rela 
tion  to  the  natives,  was  adopted  by  the  General  Court.  Among 
its  ^provisions,  is  one  assigning  "  parcels  of  lands,"  in  order  to 


312  EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS. 

encourage  the  natives  "  to  live  in  an  orderly  way."  Another 
enjoins  that  "  those  necessary  and  wholesome  laws,  which  may 
be  made  to  reduce  them  to  civility  of  life,  shall  be  once  in  the 
year  (if  times  be  safe)  made  known  to  them."  After  these 
enactments  looking  to  their  civilization,  another  follows,  ordering 
that  two  ministers  should  be  sent  "  to  make  known  the  Heavenly 
council  of  God  among  the  Indians." 

We  have  here  a  plan  both  large  and  wise.  It  shows  more 
than  legislative  wisdom  in  the  twofold  purpose  which  it  em 
braces.  The  social  element  had  the  first  place,  as  was  fit.  In 
all  ages  of  Christianity,  its  missionaries  have  felt  the  necessity  of 
changing  the  outward,  as  well  as  the  inward,  life  of  their  con 
verts.  For  this  the  mediaeval  monks  made  their  monasteries  the 
schools  of  industry,  as  well  as  faith ;  for  this  the  modern  ex 
plorers,  like  Livingstone  in  Africa,  insist  that  new  occupations, 
as  well  as  new  doctrines,  are  essential  to  reclaim  the  heathen. 
"  I  confess,"  said  John  Eliot  of  his  Indians,  "  I  think  no  great 
good  will  be  done  till  they  be  more  civilized."  Grave  obstacles, 
too  grave  to  be  surmounted  wholly,  presented  themselves  at 
every  turn.  What  the  Englishman  most  liked,  —  his  house,  his 
farm,  his  trade,  his  studies,  —  the  Indian  seemed  most  to  dislike. 
Governor  Winthrop  tells  us,  in  his  journal,  of  a  question  put  by 
an  Indian  to  "  an  honest,  plain  Englishman,"  concerning  the 
first  beginnings,  or  principles,  of  a  commonwealth.  The  answer 
came  after  some  thought,  that  the  first  principle  was  salt  to  pre 
serve  flesh  or  fish  for  use  in  time  of  need;  the  second,  iron  to  cut 
down  trees,  build  houses,  and  till  the  land ;  the  third,  ships  to 
carry  away  what  can  be  spared,  and  bring  back  what  is  needed. 
"  Alas !  "  said  the  Indian,  "  then  I  fear  we  shall  never  be  a  com 
monwealth,  for  we  can  neither  make  salt,  iron,  or  ships."  Chief 
obstacle  of  all  was  the  tribal  organization :  to  do  away  with  it, 
supposing  that  possible,  was  to  rouse  hostility ;  to  leave  it  un 
touched,  was  to  insure  the  continuance  of  barbarism.  Eliot 
describes  a  collision  between  himself  and  the  Sachem  Cutshamo- 
quin,  of  Dorchester,  who  remonstrated  against  the  apostle's 
course,  which,  he  said,  all  the  sachems  were  determined  to  resist. 
"  It  pleased  God,"  says  Eliot,  "  to  raise  up  my  spirit,  not  to 
passion  but  to  a  bold  resolution,  telling  him  it  was  God's  work 
I  was  about,  and  He  was  with  me,  and  I  feared  not  him  nor*all 


EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  INDIANS.  313 

the  sachems  in  the  country."  Notwithstanding  all  these  dif 
ficulties,  the  working  plan  was  seen  to  be  right.  The  effort  to 
civilize  the  Indian  was  not  relaxed ;  the  hope  of  converting  him 
was  not  shaken. 

Indeed,  there  was  great  encouragement  at  the  outset.  The 
volume  of  tracts  relating  to  the  Indian  missions,  reprinted  by  the 
Historical  Society,  thirty  odd  years  ago,  recalls  the  fond  hopes 
with  which  this  work  of  our  fathers  began.  The  titles  run,  — 
«  The  Day-Breaking,  if  not  the  Sun-Rising,  of  the  Gospel,"  "  The 
Clear  Sun- Shine  of  the  Gospel,"  "  The  Glorious  Progress  of  the 
Gospel,"  "  The  Light  appearing  more  and  more  towards  the  Per 
fect  Day."  These  are  but  words,  and  yet  they  stand  for  deeds 
which  move  one's  heart  to  a  deep  sympathy  as  he  recalls  the 
time  when  it  was  hoped  that  they  would  open  the  way  to  suc 
cessful  issues.  For,  as  we  now  know  too  well,  the  sunshine  was 
made  only  in  some  shady  places,  and  the  general  darkness  re 
mained  unbroken. 

One  of  the  earliest  converts  was  Hiacoomes,  "  a  man  of  a 
sad  and  sober  spirit,"  says  his  teacher,  Thomas  Mayhew.  He 
was  born  about  1620,  and  his  conversion  took  place  in  1643; 
when,  as  Mayhew  writes,  "  this  work  had  its  first  rise  and 
beginning."  A  neighboring  sagamore,  railing  at  the  convert 
for  his  submission  to  the  English,  struck  him  in  the  face ;  and 
when  Hiacoomes  told  the  story,  he  said  :  "  I  had  one  hand  for 
injuries,  and  the  other  for  God  ;  while  I  did  receive  wrong  with 
the  one,  the  other  laid  the  greater  hold  on  God."  A  few  years 
afterwards,  Hiacoomes  lost  an  infant  child,  at  whose  simple 
funeral  there  were  no  "  black  faces,"  no  food  or  ornaments 
buried  in  the  grave,  no  savage  outcries,  "  but  a  patient  resign 
ing  of  it,"  says  Mayhew,  "  to  Him  that  gave  it."  Here  evi 
dently  was  a  convert  whose  sincerity  could  not  be  questioned,  nor 
could  any  one  be  more  fitly  employed  in  bringing  his  country 
men  to  the  truth.  His  example  must  have  been  all-availing ; 
and  the  patient  labors  in  which  he  engaged  as  a  teacher,  are 
described  as  having  been  much  assisted  "  for  his  own  and  their 
spiritual  good  and  advantage."  This  early  employment  of  a 
native  missionary  is  another  proof  of  the  judicious  system  upon 
which  the  work  for  the  Indians  was  carried  forward.  He  could 
reach  many  an  ear  closed  to  the  English  preacher;  he  could 


314  EARLY   RELATIONS   WITH   THE   INDIANS. 

overcome  many  a  prejudice  against  which  the  white  men,  how 
ever  earnest,  were  powerless. 

Among  the  most  touching  narratives  from  these  times  is  that 
which  Eliot  gives  concerning  the  death-bed  of  Wamporas,  "  one 
of  our  first  and  principal  men."  He  said,  that  God  gives  us 
three  mercies  in  this  world :  the  first,  health  and  strength  ;  the 
second,  food  and  clothes ;  the  third,  sickness  and  death.  And 
when,  he  added,  "  we  have  had  our  share  in  the  two  first,  why 
should  we  not  be  willing  to  take  our  part  in  the  third  ?  "  His 
last  request  to  Eliot  was,  that  the  Englishmen  with  whom  some 
of  the  Indian  children  had  been  placed  should  be  strongly 
entreated  to  teach  them  "  to  know  God."  His  last  words 
were,  "  Lord,  give  me  Jesus  Christ."  Instead  of  fleeing  from 
him,  as  his  countrymen  were  wont  to  flee  from  the  dying,  they 
flocked  around  him,  eager  to  hear  his  counsels,  and  to  witness 
the  peace  in  which  he  died.  "  I  think,"  says  Eliot,  "  he  did  more 
good  by  his  death  than  he  could  have  done  by  his  life." 

Waaubon,  in  whose  wigwam  the  apostle  Eliot  first  preached 
to  the  Indians,  offered  his  eldest  son  to  be  educated  by  the 
English,  in  the  hope  "  that  he  might  come  to  know  God, 
although  he  despaired  much  concerning  himself."  It  was  a  part 
of  the  missionary  scheme,  from  the  very  beginning,  that  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  Indians  should  receive  special  care. 
Like  the  children  of  every  class  to  be  reclaimed  at  any  time, 
these  excited  greater  hopes  and  encouraged  greater  exertions 
than  their  fathers  did.  Not  many  years  after  Eliot's  apostle- 
ship  began,  an  Indian  college  was  founded  at  Cambridge,  as  a 
department  of  the  still  infant  institution  there.  The  build 
ing,  large  enough  to  hold  twenty  students,  cost  between  three 
and  four  hundred  pounds.  One  of  its  inmates  was  Joel,  a  son 
of  Hiacoomes,  who  had  nearly  completed  his  academic  course, 
when,  returning  from  his  home  in  Martha's  Vineyard,  he  was 
wrecked  on  Nantucket,  and  murdered  by  the  natives  of  that 
island.  "  Thus  perished  our  young  prophet  Joel,"  says  Gookin  : 
"  he  was  a  good  scholar  and  a  pious  man."  The  solitary  Indian 
graduate  of  Harvard,  Caleb  Cheeshahteaumuck,  died  the  year 
after  he  took  his  degree.  Did  the  aboriginal  Freshman  suffer  at 
the  hands  of  the  Puritan  Sophomore  ?  Was  there  any  em 
phasis  in  the  class-room  on  Barbarus  has  segetes  ?  Alma  Mater, 


EARLY  RELATIONS  WITH   THE  INDIANS.  315 

at  all  events,  was  never  more  gracious  or  more  maternal  than 
in  the  nurture  she  gave  to  her  Indian  sons.  If  the  lessons  she 
taught  them  were  of  brief  avail  in  life,  they  must  have  been  a 
comfort  in  death. 

"  The  air  is  full  of  farewells  to  the  dying, 
And  mournings  for  the  dead." 

It  seems  as  if  learning  could  not  touch  the  Indian  without 
inflicting  a  mortal  wound ;  as  if  his  civilization  were  his  ex 
tinction,  and  conversion  a  speedy  release  from  a  world  of  tribu 
lation. 

The  Indian  college  was  built  by  the  Society  for  Propagating 
the  Gospel  in  New  England,  established  by  the  Long  Parlia 
ment,  in  1649,  at  the  instance  chiefly  of  New  Englanders.  As 
Gookin  wrote  afterwards,  "  There  is  always  more  occasion 
to  disburse  than  there  is  money  to  be  disbursed,"  —  a  remark  not 
yet  without  force.  The  English  Society  proved  of  great  service  ; 
its  contributions  came  not  only  from  the  churches  and  the  universi 
ties,  but  from  the  army  of  England,  and  it  was  unwearied  for 
many  years  in  aiding  both  the  missionaries  and  their  converts  in 
New  England.  The  Indian  college,  though  soon  bereft  of  the 
students  for  whom  it  was  designed,  continued  to  serve  the  natives, 
as  the  printing-house  from  which  text-books  and  versions  oY  the 
Scriptures,  in  their  own  tongue,  were  issued.  As  early  as  1649, 
Eliot  wrote  of  his  desire  to  translate  some  parts  of  the  Bible,  for 
the  use  of  his  converts,  which,  he  says,  "  I  look  at  as  a  sacred 
and  holy  work."  In  1651,  he  writes,  "  I  have  no  hope  to  see 
the  Bible  translated,  much  less  printed,  in  my  days."  But,  with 
the  help  of  the  Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel,  and  in  the 
college  which  they  reared,  the  work  went  on  beyond  his  hopes, 
and  was  at  length  completed.  It  was  the  crowning  labor,  not 
only  of  his  life,  but  of  the  lives  of  all  who  labored  in  the  same 
cause ;  and  the  Indian  Version  on  which  their  minds  were  em 
ployed,  and  in  which  their  hearts  were  interested,  served  as  the 
messenger  of  peace  and  good-will  amid  all  the  storms  of  passion 
by  which  the  country  and  its  races  were  distracted. 

Such,  so  far  as  they  can  be  described  within  these  limits,  were 
the  early  relations  with  the  Indians.  The  results  were  never  so 
considerable  as  had  been  anticipated,  on  either  side  of  the  ocean. 
About  thirty  years  after  Mayhew  began  his  labors  in  Martha's 


316  EARLY  RELATIONS   WITH   THE  INDIANS. 

Vineyard,  and  Eliot  preached  his  first  sermon  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Boston,  there  were  perhaps  four  thousand  Praying 
Indians,  so  called,  in  Massachusetts ;  nearly  one-half  of  whom 
belonged  to  the  Vineyard  and  adjacent  islands,  rather  more  than 
one  quarter  to  Eliot's  churches,  and  the  remaining  quarter  to 
Plymouth  and  other  places.  Mayhew  writes  to  Gookin,  in  1674, 
"  The  whole  holds  forth  the  face  of  Christianity:  how  sincere,  I 
know  not."  The  numbers  just  given  show  that  the  work  had 
not  been  a  colonial  one,  or  it  would  have  attained  to  much 
greater  proportions.  It  was  the  individual  rather  than  the  com 
munity  who  took  an  interest  in  the  Indians  ;  it  was  only  a  man 
like  Mayhew  or  Eliot  who,  — 

"  With  filial  confidence  inspired, 
Could  lift  to  Heaven  an  unpresumptuous  eye, 
And  smiling  say,  '  My  Father  made  them  all/  " 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  work  an  Indian  one  collec 
tively.  Men  like  Hiacoomes  and  Wamporas  entered  into  it 
with  all  their  souls;  but  the  great  majority  of  their  countrymen 
regarded  it  with  indifference,  if  not  positive  aversion.  The 
sketches  of  Christianity,  as  it  extends  among  them,  are  all  individ 
ual,  like  that  of  Mayhew's  convert  who  told  him,  "  When  I  walk 
in  the  woods  alone,  I  have  much  talk  with  God,  and  great 
repentance  for  my  sins,  and  now  I  throw  behind  me  all  my 
strange  gods,  and  my  heart  goes  right  to  God  in  prayer."  This 
was  the  trail  of  one,  not  all,  not  even  many. 

The  hindrances  to  general  relations  with  the  Indians  have  been 
touched  upon :  it  remains  only  to  account  for  the  drawbacks  to 
their  conversion.  We  need  not  dwell  on  their  accountability 
alone  :  they  were  unfit,  both  as  savages  and  as  heathens,  to  be-* 
come  facile  or  thorough  converts;  but  were  not  their  teachers 
unfit,  in  some  respects,  to  convert  them  ?  The  Englishman  was 
too  much  preoccupied  as  a  settler,  to  be  an  ideal  missionary :  he 
was  laden  with  cares  of  his  own,  or  of  the  colony ;  and  the  bur 
den  of  another  race  was  more  than  he  could  bear  with  ease  or 
with  efficiency.  Nor  were  his  missionary  methods  such  as 
smoothed  his  way  to  the  Indian.  Eliot's  first  service,  in  Waau- 
bon's  wigwam,  crowded  with  men,  women,  and  children,  con 
sisted  of  a  prayer  in  English,  a  sermon  of  one  hour  and  a  quarter, 
and  "  certain  questions  to  see  what  they  would  say  to  them,  that 


EARLY   RELATIONS   WITH   THE   INDIANS.  317 

so  we  might  screw,  by  variety  of  means,  something  or  other  of 
God  into  them."  "  After  three  hours'  time  thus  spent  with  them," 
says  the  missionary,  "  we  asked  them  if  they  were  not  weary, 
and  they  answered,  «  No.'  "  Yet  the  not  inappropriate  name  then 
given  to  these  exercises,  was  "  heartbreakings."  The  religious 
divisions  of  the  teachers  were  another  stumbling-block  to  their 
disciples.  Mayhew's  people  were  told,  by  some  Quakers,  that 
he  was  a  priest  of  Baal.  Two  of  Eliot's  converts  were  taken  to 
task,  for  his  errors  and  theirs,  by  the  Gorton  sectaries  at  War 
wick.  It  was  difficult  for  the  Indians  to  know  which  doctrine  to 
believe,  —  indeed  to  feel  that  any  doctrines,  in  such  dispute,  were 
worth  believing  at  all. 

But  the  one  great  hindrance  to  the  conversion  of  the  red  men 
was  the  repeated  outbreak  of  war,  drowning  the  Christian's  voice 
in  the  clash  of  arms.  That  meeting-house,  which  the  Plymouth 
people  built  on  Burial  Hill,  a  casemate  to  their  fort,  with  the 
sign  not  of  the  cross  but  of  the  cannon,  is  symbolic  of  all  the 
Indian  missions.  The  English  came  hither,  as  Bolingbroke  to 

England,  — 

"  To  ope 
The  purple  testament  of  bleeding  war ; " 

and  the  drops  from  its  pages  blotted  out  the  Scriptures  of  Peace. 
King  Philip's  war,  in  1675,  scattered  the  Christian  Indians  as 
sheep  before  a  pack  of  wolves. 

And  yet  the  work,  though  broken  up  beyond  the  possibility  of 
restoration,  is  not  to  be  pronounced  a  failure.  Had  it  saved  but 
one  soul ;  had  Hiacoomes  or  Joel,  or  others  of  a  higher  rank  in 
Indian  eyes,  like  Wamporas  or  Waaubon,  been  the  only  glean 
ings,  —  the  harvest  would  not  have  been  vain.  Even  if  it  seems  a 
failure,  compared  with  the  promises  of  the  seed-time,  it  deserves 
to  be  classed  with  other  failures,  nobler  than  many  a  success ; 
nobler,  because  their  lines  of  light  are  broader ;  nobler,  because 
their  ideals  are  loftier :  so  that  even  a  partial  attainment  of  them 
is  better  than  the  perfect  triumph  of  an  inferior  cause. 


THE    KEGICIDES    SHELTEEED    IN 
NEW    ENGLAND. 


BY   KEY.   CHANDLER   BOBBINS,   D.D. 


THE    REGICIDES    SHELTERED 
NEW    ENGLAND. 


IF  it  were  merely  that  a  romantic  interest  attaches  to  the  story 
of  the  Regicides  sheltered  in  New  England  —  however  inviting 
on  that  account  the  theme  might  be  —  it  would  not  have  been 
selected  as  the  subject  of  a  lecture  in  the  course  now  in  progress. 
Its  claim  to  this  distinction  rests  rather  upon  the  fact  that  it 
touches  at  various  points  the  policy  and  the  characters,  the  public 
and  private  life,  of  the  Founders  of  Massachusetts.  We  cannot 
retouch  the  fading  portraits  of  those  stern  puritan  soldiers ;  we 
cannot  review  the  stirring  scenes  in  which  they  performed  a  prom 
inent  part;  we  cannot  pass  judgment  upon  their  characters  in 
connection  with  those  transactions  to  which  they  owe  both  their 
celebrity  and  their  sufferings  ;  nor  can  we  trace  them  in  their 
long  and  dreary  exile,  —  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  penetrate  the 
mystery  in  which  they  were  enveloped,  —  without  throwing  some 
light  upon  the  pages  of  our  early  history,  —  upon  persons,  opin 
ions,  and  movements,  of  greater  importance  than  that  which 
attaches  to  those  ill-starred  individuals. 

And  yet  another  reason  influenced  the  friend  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  the  arrangement  of  these  lectures,  in  the  selection 
and  assignment  of  this  topic.  In  preparing  for  publication  in  the 
Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  a  mass  of 
manuscripts,  originally  belonging  to  the  Mather  family,  and  which 
afterwards  formed  a  part  of  the  Library  of  Rev.  Thomas  Prince, 
the  Annalist  of  New  England,  I  discovered  that  a  large  number 
related  to  the  Regicides.  Many  of  these  proved  to  be  in  the  hand 
writing  of  William  Goffe  himself;  consisting  of  letters  which  he 
had  written  and  received  while  in  seclusion.  He  had  employed 
secret  characters  to  conceal  the  names  of  individuals  and  certain 

21 


322       THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

other  particulars,  in  case  the  correspondence  should  be  intercepted: 
but  these  were  easily  deciphered.  The  printing  of  these  letters, 
which  occupy  nearly  a  hundred  pages,  has  revived  the  interest 
which  has  always  been  felt  in  these  refugees,  and  added  a  few 
particulars  to  the  scanty  information  which  history  and  tradition 
have  heretofore  supplied. 

Our  subject  requires  a  preliminary  glance  at  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  eventful  periods  in  the  history  of  England  —  I 
might  say  in  the  history  of  Liberty  —  that  of  the  revolution  which 
led  to  the  overthrow  of  the  British  Monarchy  and  the  establish 
ment  of  a  Commonwealth,  in  1649. 

Although  the  conflict  between  Charles  I.  and  the  Com 
mons  was  provoked  by  circumstances  peculiar  to  the  period 
itself,  and  aggravated  by  the  stubborn  temper  of  the  parties 
engaged  in  it,  its  real  origin  is  to  be  traced  back  to  principles 
which  had  been  at  work  in  the  bosom  of  English  society  centuries 
before  the  accession  of  that  misguided  monarch  to  the  throne. 
Whatever  variety  of  motives  and  interests  may  have  been  acces 
sory  to  the  strife,  and  whatever  prejudices  and  passions  may  have 
embittered  it,  it  was,  in  the  main,  the  renewal,  only  with  unusual 
intensity,  of  the  old  struggle  between  despotism  and  liberty. 
Whether  we  regard  it  in  its  political  or  its  religious  aspects, — 
for  both  political  and  religious  animosities  were  blended  in  it,  in 
nearly  equal  proportions,  —  the  ruling  principle  was  the  same. 
The  King  and  his  party  were  contending  for  absolute  power 
both  in  the  State  and  in  the  Church ;  the  majority  of  the  Par 
liament  and  its  supporters  in  the  army  and  in  the  nation  for 
popular  rights. 

No  just  judgment  can  be  formed  of  the  character  of  this 
conflict  without  carefully  distinguishing  the  prime  cause  from 
the  collateral  objects  which  became  entangled  with  it,  —  the 
principles  in  controversy  between  the  two  great  parties  from  the 
personal  motives,  exceptional  designs,  and  incidental  acts  of 
the  individuals  and  factions  included  in  their  ranks. 

In  respect  to  the  cause  itself,  no  loyal  descendant  of  the  Pil 
grims  can  hesitate  to  give  his  sympathy  to  the  side  of  the  Com 
mons.  The  tyranny  against  which  they  were  struggling  was  the 
scourge  which  had  driven  our  Forefathers  from  their  pleasant 
land.  The  political  and  religious- reform  for  which  the  best 


THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  323 

spirits  among  them  were  striving  was  the  very  same  in  which  the 
members  of  the  Massachusetts  Company  were  engaged.  The 
liberal  movement  which  was  going  on  with  such  fierce  throes  in 
the  very  heart  of  Old  England,  was  simultaneously  at  work,  with 
more  quiet  earnestness,  because  less  actively  resisted,  in  these 
distant  Colonies.  The  men  who  were  undertaking  to  build  up 
a  Christian  Commonwealth  on  this  side  of  the  ocean  \vere  of  one 
brotherhood  with  those  who  were  engaged  in  demolishing  the 
fabric  of  despotism  on  the  other.  Not  only  were  they  allied  by 
the  closest  ties  of  personal  friendship  and  political  and  religious 
sympathy,  but  in  many  instances  by  actual  association  in  the  en 
terprise  that  founded  Massachusetts.  Ten  or  twelve  of  the  Mas 
sachusetts  Company,  including  Cradock  the  Governor,  and  Vane  a 
former  Governor,  were  members  of  the  Long  Parliament.  Hamp- 
den,  Pym,  and  Fiennes,  Patentees  of  Connecticut,  were  among 
its  most  influential  Commoners.1  Six  or  seven  sat  in  judgment 
on  the  King;  and  a  long  list  might  be  added  of  others  connected 
with  the  civil  war — some  of  them  representing  the  best  blood  in 
England  —  who  were  more  or  less  directly  concerned  with  Win- 
throp  and  his  Colleagues.  Nothing  but  a  prohibitory  order  from 
the  King's  Council  had  prevented  Cromwell  himself,  with  Hamp- 
den  and  Pym,  who  had  actually  embarked  for  the  purpose,  from 
transferring  their  persons  and  estates  to  America.2  Who  can 
tell  what  a  different  fate  might  have  befallen  Charles  and  Eng 
land,  had  not  tyranny,  in  gratifying  its  present  malice,  sharpened 
and  laid  up  in  store  the  weapons  of  its  future  destruction  ? 

The  Commons  were  mainly  in  the  right.  Their  cause  was  the 
cause  of  liberty  and  justice.  Many  of  the  greatest  and  best 
men  of  the  period,  at  home  and  in  the  Colonies,  were  on  their 
side.  The  common  heart  of  England  was  beating  in  unison  with 
their  purpose,  so  long  and  so  far  as  they  adhered  to  it  with  pure 

1  Archaeologia  Amer.,  vol.  iii. ;  Dr.  Palfrey's  History  of  N.  E. 

2  This  fact  has  been  questioned  ;  but  it  appears  to  me  that  it  is  supported  by  suf 
ficient  authority.     It  is  stated  by  Hume  and  several  other  historians.     In  "  Crom- 
welliana,"  London,  1810,  fol.  p.  1,  there  is  the  following  statement,  —  "  In  1637,  he," 
Cromwell,  "  had  a  design  to  remove  to  New  England.     Sir  Matthew  Boynton,  Sir 
William  Constable,  Sir  Arthur  Haslerigg,  Mr.  John  Hampden,  and  several  other 
gentlemen   were  preparing  to  remove  themselves   with  him,  and   were   actually 
embarked  for  that  purpose ;  but  were  prevented  by  a  proclamation  and  order  of 
Council." 


324  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

patriotism,  loyalty  to  justice,  and  unmixed  devotion.  And  this 
they  did — with  due  allowance  for  human  imperfection  —  at 
least  up  to  the  moment  when  the  sword  was  actually  drawn. 
Nor  does  the  responsibility  for  its  unsheathing  rest  with  them. 
The  fatal  challenge  was  given  when  the  King  with  his  armed 
retinue  made  his  way  to  the  Speaker's  desk  to  enforce  his  de 
mand  that  the  five  obnoxious  members,  with  Hampden  at  their 
head,  should 'be  delivered  up  to  his  power.  That  infatuated 
act  was  virtually  a  declaration  of  war.1  From  that  hour  the 
grand  struggle  for  liberty,  which  had  hitherto  been  guided  by 
Wise  and  thoughtful  statesmen,  and  pure  and  ardent  patriots, 
began  to  pass  over  to  the  army,  and  while  acquiring  new  force 
became  subjected  to  new  perils. 

The  elements  of  which  that  army  was  composed,  while  render 
ing  it  irresistible  in  the  field,  made  it  all  the  more  dangerous  in 
the  State.  It  was  made  up  not  of  ordinary  soldiers  who  take 
up  arms  under  the  pressure  of  poverty,  or  from  the  love  of  fierce 
excitement  and  reckless  adventure;  but  principally  of  respect 
able  citizens,  farmers,  tradesmen,  and  rural  gentlemen,  of  good 
estate  and  good  education:  not  of  mere  human  machines 
moving  blindly  at  the  beck  of  their  commanders ;  but  each  one  a 
thinking  and  reflecting  individual,  conscious  of  his  power,  and 
jealous  of  his  independence ;  who  regarded  himself  as  a  "chosen 
vessel  in  the  hands  of  the  Lord,"  specially  ordained  to  fight  his 
battles  :  many  of  them  political  zealots  and  religious  enthusiasts, 
and  not  a  few  agitators,  demagogues,  levellers,  and  wild  fanatics, 
breathing  the  ferocious  spirit,  and  borrowing  the  vindictive 
language  of  the  prophets  and  warriors  of  the  Old  Dispensation ; 
men  of  austere  morals,  of  iron  will,  of  fiery  temper,  and  des 
perate  courage ;  a  host  of  Titans,  whom  no  difficulties  dis 
couraged,  and  no  odds  dismayed ;  who  marched  into  battle  with 

1  The  question  has  been  often  debated  whether  the  King  or  the  Parliament  began 
the  civil  war.  There  may  be  room  for  difference  of  opinion,  as  to  which  of  the 
parties  actually  commenced  the  final  struggle  of  arms ;  but  there  can  be  no  dispute 
as  to  the  fact  that  the  "  deplorable  excesses  by  which  it  was  so  fatally  provoked  and 
embittered,"  mainly  originated  with  the  party  of  prerogative.  The  cruel  per 
secutions,  "  imprisonments,  fines,  pilloryings,  brandings,  cutting  off  of  ears/'  and 
other  sanguinary  punishments  for  opinion's  sake,  began  with  them.  If  it  could  be 
shown  that  the  party  of  the  Parliament  first  resorted  to  arms,  it  is  clear  that  they 
were  goaded  to  it  beyond  endurance. 


THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  325 

exultation,  determined  to  conquer  and  confident  of  victory,  and 
never  failed  to  crush  and  scatter  the  strongest  force  opposed  to 
them. 

Invariable  success  confirmed  their  conceit  that  they  were  the 
special  favorites  of  Heaven.  As  hostile  to  the  party  of  the 
Presbyterians  as  to  that  of  the  King,  they  sifted  them  more  and 
more  from  their  ranks  as  the  war  went  on.  That  party,  however, 
constituted  the  majority  of  the  Parliament,  and  therefore,  no 
sooner  had  the  army  broken  the  forces  of  the  King  than  it 
directed  its  power  against  the  Parliament  itself.  Thus,  the  war 
which  had  begun  as  a  contest  between  royal  usurpation  and 
popular  rights,  ended  in  a  struggle  between  Independency  and 
Presbyterianism.  The  high  and  patriotic  purpose  for  which 
Hampden  and  other  kindred  spirits  had  reluctantly  unsheathed 
the  sword  was  comparatively  lost  sight  of;  and  the  great 
national  party,  which  had  been  united  under  their  leadership 
by  a  common  zeal  for  liberty  and  right,  separated  into  two  rival 
religious  factions,  contending  with  each  other  for  supremacy 
with  hardly  less  acrimony  than  they  had  together  fought  against 
the  King.  To  secure  his  person  and  influence  was  an.  object 
of  the  first  importance  to  both,  and  each  resorted  to  intrigue  to 
gain  him  over  to  their  side.  The  Presbyterians  desired  a  limited 
monarchy  with  their  own  particular  system  of  church  govern 
ment  ;  and  offered  to  reinstate  the  King,  if  he  would  consent  to 
its  establishment  as  the  religion  of  the  State.  The  Independents 
preferred  a  Republic;  but  knew  that  if  the  King  gave  up 
Episcopacy,  and  combined  with  the  Presbyterians,  they  should 
be  defeated ;  and  for  this  reason  the  leaders  of  the  army  offered 
to  replace  him  upon  the  throne,  on  the  single  condition  of  liberty 
of  conscience,  and  the  security  of  the  military  power  in  their 
hands.  The  Parliament  attempted  to  destroy  the  influence  of 
the  Independents  and  of  Cromwell,  their  ruling  spirit,  by  dimin 
ishing  the  army  and  forcing  its  officers  to  conform  to  the  system 
of  church  government  which  they  had  established  by  an  ordi 
nance.  The  latter  seeing  that  there  was  not  a  moment  to  be 
lost,  if  they  would  maintain  their  power,  resolved,  at  a  meeting 
in  Cromwell's  house,  to  seize  the  person  of  the  King,  and  pre 
pare  to  defend  themselves  against  the  votes  of  Parliament  by 
force.  The  order  was  instantly  executed ;  and  the  army,  sum- 


326  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

moned  to  a  general  rendezvous,  not  only  entered  into  a  solemn 
engagement  that  they  "  would  not  disband  nor  divide,  nor  suffer 
themselves  to  be  disbanded  or  divided,"  but  passed  a  declaratory 
resolution  that  "  the  public  welfare  demanded  the  removal  from 
credit  and  office  of  the  men  by  whose  counsels  the  army  had 
been  calumniated  and  oppressed." 

The  Parliament ,  in  alarm  passed  votes  to  pacify  the  army, 
which  were  read  at  the  head  of  each  regiment.  The  officers 
returned  an  evasive  reply,  and  moved  their  headquarters  nearer 
to  the  metropolis.  Again  Cromwell  tried  by  every  device  to 
induce  the  King  to  throw  himself  upon  the  generosity  of  the 
army.  He  protested  that  "  nothing  was  nearer  to  his  heart 
than  the  restoration  of  Charles  to  his  authority  upon  moderate 
and  equal  terms  —  that  if  he  would  co-operate  with  the  Council 
of  War,  they  would  repay  the  obligation  with  interest." 

Finding  that  the  King  was  unyielding,  —  for  he  was  as  dis 
trustful  of  their  sincerity,  as  they  were  sure  of  his  duplicity,  — 
Cromwell  and  his  associates  plainly  saw  that  nothing  was  left  to 
them  but  either  to  relinquish  their  power,  surrender  the  claims 
of  the  soldiers,  give  up  all  for  which  they  had  been  fighting, 
and  subject  themselves  to  the  penalties  which  surely  awaited 
them,  into  the  hands  of  whichsoever  of  the  hostile  parties  the 
government  should  fall ;  or  to  resort  to  such  desperate  measures 
as  would  involve  King,  Parliament,  and  the  Constitution  itself, 
in  common  ruin. 

Such  a  conclusion  certainly  did  not  enter  into  their  original 
plan,  although  there  may  have  been  some  zealots  who  looked 
forward  to  it  in  their  wild  dreams,  or  even  suggested  it  in  their 
ravings,  but  was  a  hasty  result  to  which  they  were  driven  by  a 
series  of  disappointments  on  their  own  part,  and  a  train  of 
mistakes  on  the  part  of  the  Prelatists  and  Presbyterians,  together 
with  the  intense  religious  and  political  excitement  to  which  the 
soldiers  had  wrought  themselves  up.  They  were  not  men  who 
would  hesitate  long  in  such  an  extremity,  or  shrink  from  the  path 
which  necessity  and  Providence,  as  they  believed,  had  marked 
out  for  them,  however  disastrous  the  consequences  to  which  it 
might  lead. 

Their  course  was  instantly  decided  upon.  They  seized  the 
person  of  the  King,  and  marched  the  army  to  London.  "  Now 


THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED   IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  327 

that  I  have  the  King  in  my  hand,"  said  Cromwell,  "  I  have  the 
Parliament  in  my  pocket."  A  strong  guard  was  placed  over 
the  two  Houses.  A  demand  was  made  that  all  the  leading 
Presbyterians,  and  all  who  had  adhered  to  them,  and  all  the 
members  who  had  recently  voted  in  favor  of  pacification  with 
the  King,  should  be  expelled  from  their  seats.  The  demand  was 
enforced  by  violence.  The  purged  House  became  the  tool  of 
the  army,  which  had  now  usurped  the  civil  as  well  as  the 
military  power  of  the  nation.  At  the  beck  of  these  grim  sol 
diers,  a  small  minority  were  compelled  to  resolve  upon  the  im 
peachment  of  the  King,  and  to  pass  an  ordinance  for  his  trial, 
by  a  special  tribunal,  which  they  called  a  High  Court  of  Judica 
ture.  The  Lords  immediately  rejected  the  measure,  with  a 
declaration  that  no  resolution  of  the  Lower  House  was  valid 
without  their  concurrence.  The  indignant  Commoners  at  first 
thought  of  accusing  all  the  Peers  of  high  treason ;  but  instead 
of  taking  a  step  so  absurd  and  reckless,  concluded  to  cover  their 
revolutionary  design  with  a  thin  semblance  of  loyalty,  by  pass 
ing  a  resolution  that,  "  as  the  people  were,  under  God,  the  original 
of  all  just  power,  and  the  Commons  were  their  representative, 
all  the  enactments  of  the  latter  had  the  force  of  law  without  the 
concurrence  of  King  and  Peers."  Having  now  at  one  blow 
virtually  overturned  the  Constitution  and  seized  the  supreme 
power,  the  way  was  cleared  of  every  obstacle  to  the  execution  of 
their  purpose. 

The  body  of  the  people  who  were  opposed  to  the  tyranny  of 
the  army,  and  at  heart  attached  to  the  Constitution,  were  the 
only  quarter  from  which  effective  resistance  could  be  appre 
hended.  But  the  strong  arm  of  the  military  could  keep  them 
down,  at  least  for  a  time  ;  and  the  stunning  suddenness  of  the 
meditated  blow  would  allow  them  no  opportunity  to  rally. 
Meanwhile,  the  prime  movers  availed  themselves  of  strange  in 
struments  to  confirm  their  own  zeal  and  warp  the  minds  of  the 
populace  to  their  purpose.  The  revelations  of  visionary  proph 
ets,  male  and  female,  giving  assurance  of  the  sanction  of 
Heaven  upon  their  measures,  were  accepted  with  avidity  and 
diligently  reported,  Cromwell  himself  declared  that  when  he 
was  lately  praying  for  the  restoration  of  the  King,  he  had  been 
favored  with  a  preternatural  sign  that  God  had  rejected  him. 


328  THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

And,  as  "  a  fit  prelude  to  the  tragedy "  about  to  be  enacted, 
Hugh  Peters,  that  wild  enthusiast  and  crafty  incendiary,  was 
employed  to  preach  to  an  audience  of  soldiers  and  citizens,  with 
the  fanatical  eloquence  of  which  he  was  a  master.  He  took 
his  text  from  the  149th  Psalm,  perverting  the  true  application  by 
a  cunning  change  of  the  pronouns :  "  Bind  your  kings  with 
chains  and  your  nobles  with  fetters  of  iron."  He  compared  the 
King  to  Barabbas,  called  the  army  the  saviours  of  the  people, 
and  affirmed  that  there  were  in  its  ranks  "  five  thousand  saints 
not  inferior  to  those  who  surround  the  throne  of  God."  Then 
suddenly  pausing,  he  closed  his  eyes,  laid  his  head  upon  the 
cushion,  and  exclaimed,  "  I  have  had  a  revelation.  The  Slavery 
of  the  children  of  Israel  and  of  the  elect  shall  have  an  end  by 
the  extirpation  of  royalty  in  England,  and  in  all  other  King 
doms." 

On  the  eighth  day-of  January,  1649,  only  fifty-three  out  of  the 
one  hundred  and  thirty-three  Commissioners  sat  for  the  first 
time  in  the  Painted  Chamber  in  Westminster  Hall,  —  and  sixty- 
seven  was  the  largest  number  present  on  any  subsequent  day. 
The  twelve  Judges  of  the  realm,  who  were  at  first  appointed 
members  of  the  Commission,  having  given  their  opinion  that 
trial  was  illegal,  were  afterwards  set  aside,  together  with  several 
of  the  Peers.  Many  others  refused  to  take  a  part.  Fairfax, 
the  Commander-in- Chief  of  the  Army,  never  appeared.  Vane 
and  St.  John  held  themselves  aloof.  Algernon  Sidney  says, — 

"  I  was  at  Penthurst  when  the  act  for  the  King's  trial  was  passed,  and 
coming  up  to  town,  I  heard  that  my  name  was  put  in  it.  I  presently 
went  to  the  Painted  Chamber  where  the  Judges  were  assembled.  A 
debate  was  raised,  and  I  positively  opposed  the  proceeding.  Cromwell 
using  these  formal  words,  *  I  tell  you  we  will  cut  off  his  head  with  the 
Crown  on  it,'  I  replied,  '  You  may  take  your  own  course,  I  cannot  stop 
you  ;  but  I  will  keep  myself  clear  from  having  any  hand  in  this  business.' 
Saying  this,  I  immediately  left  them,  and  never  returned." 

One  or  two  others  who  had  the  courage  to  attempt  to  stay 
the  proceedings  were  summarily  put  down.  A  few  of  the 
weaker  minded,  who  had  no  heart  for  the  business,  were  in 
timidated  into  compliance.  The  remainder  engaged  in  the  work 
with  a  will :  —  Cromwell,  who  professedly,  perhaps  really,  had 
entered  upon  it  only  after  many  struggles,  and  prayers  specially 


THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  329 

answered,  throwing  himself  into  it  with  all  his  relentless  resolu 
tion  and  indomitable  energy,  and  at  once  assuming  that  lead, 
which  in  every  enterprise  his  ambition  prompted  him  to  take, 
and  his  masterly  powers  fitted  him  to  maintain  :  —  others  from 
a  frenzied  desire  for  a  revolution  which  should  level  all  pre 
rogative,  and  all  barriers  to  universal  freedom  :  —  and  still  others 
from  a  sincere  and  fervid  conviction  that  they  were  serving 
God  and  their  country  in  a  holy  and  glorious  cause. 

Before  this  strange  and  terrible  tribunal  —  not  of  Judges,  not 
even  of  members  of  Parliament  alone,  but  of  grim  soldiers  also, 
and  fierce  partisans  selected  from  among  the  people  —  constituted 
not  for  judgment,  but  for  condemnation  —  implacable  hostility 
stamped  upon  every  face —  Charles  I.  was  arraigned. 

The  circumstances  attending  the  trial  are  familiar  to  every 
reader  of  English  history :  —  the  charges  brought  against  the 
King,  of  treason  against  the  State,  and  of  having  been  the  cause 
of  all  the  blood  which  had  been  shed,  and  of  all  the  calamities 
which  had  afflicted  the  Kingdom  since  the  commencement  of 
the  war,  —  the  stern  and  rude  manner  of  his  treatment  by 
Bradshaw,  the  President  of  the  Court,  —  his  persistent  refusal,  on 
three  several  occasions,  to  acknowledge  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Court,  —  the  insults  of  the  mob  and  the  clamorous  demand  of 
the  soldiers  for  his  execution,  —  the  self-possession  and  dignity 
of  his  deportment,  —  and  the  final  procedure  of  the  Court,  after 
an  ex  parte  examination  of  a  few  witnesses,  to  pass  the  fatal 
sentence. 

There  are,  however,  a  few  incidents  of  the  trial,  related  by  one 
of  the  Judges,  which  appear  to  have  escaped  the  notice  of  his 
torians.  They  are  interesting,  not  only  as  showing  to  what 
extent  the  Court  was  under  the  domineering  influence  of  Crom 
well,  but  from  their  incidental  reference  to  one  of  the  three  indi 
viduals  whom  we  shall  have  occasion,  by  and  by,  particularly  to 
notice.  They  are  copied  here  in  a  condensed  form  from  a  con 
temporary  "  broad-side "  in  the  archives  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society. 

When  the  President  —  after  having  refused  to  take  any  notice 
of  the  King's  reiterated  objection  to  the  authority  of  the  Court, 
and  his  earnest  appeal  to  be  allowed  to  speak  to  his  Parliament, 
as  he  had  "  something  to  offer  for  the  settlement  of  the  nation 


330  THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED   IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

that  might  be  satisfactory  to  all "  —  had  ordered  the  Clerk  to  read 
the  sentence,  John  Downes,  Esq. —  who  had  been  an  adventurer 
to  Virginia  in  1620  —  became  so  agitated,  as  he  says,  as  to  attract 
the  notice  of  Cromwell,  who  occupied  a  contiguous  seat,  and 
who  seeing  him  about  to  rise  turned  to  him  and  said,  "  What 
ails  thee,  art  thou  mad,  canst  thou  not  sit  still  and  be  quiet?" 
The  reply  was,  "  No,  Sir,  I  cannot  be  quiet."  He  then  stood  up 
and  objected  to  the  sentence,  declaring  that  he  had  reasons  to 
offer  against  it,  and  desired  the  Court  to  adjourn  to  hear  them. 
The  President  decided  that  if  any  judge  was  dissatisfied  the 
Court  must  adjourn,  and  ordered  an  adjournment  to  the  inner 
Court  of  Wards.  As  soon  as  they  had  assembled  in  secret  ses 
sion,  Cromwell  called  upon  Downes  to  give  an  account  why  he 
had  brought  this  trouble  and  disturbance  upon  the  Court.  When 
he  had  stated  his  objections,  Cromwell  in  scornful  wrath  charged 
him  with  only  pretending  dissatisfaction  out  of  servility  to  his  old 
master. 

"  Surely,"  said  he,  "  the  gentleman  doth  not  know  that  he  has  to  deal  with 
the  hardest  hearted  man  on  earth.  But,  Sir,  it  is  not  the  opinion  of  one 
peevish,  tenacious  man  that  must  sway  the  Court,  or  deter  them  from  their 
duty  in  so  great  a  business  ;  therefore,  Sir,  I  pray  you  lose  no  more  time, 
but  return  to  the  Court  and  do  your  duty." 

Cromwell  further  whispered  in  his  ear  that  he  was  convinced 
he  "  aimed  at  nothing  but  making  a  mutiny  in  the  army  and  the 
cutting  of  throats."  Another  told  him  it  was  as  much  as  his 
life  was  worth  to  make  any  disturbance ;  that  it  was  not  in  the 
power  of  man,  nor  of  this  Parliament,  to  save  the  King's  life ; 
for  "  the  whole  army  are  resolved  that  if  there  be  but  any  check 
or  demur  in  giving  judgment,  they  will  immediately  fall  upon 
him  and  hew  him  to  pieces,  and  the  House  itself  will  not  be  out 
of  danger."  The  relater  further  says  that  he  knew  that  "  Mr. 
Dixwell  amongst  some  others  were  dissatisfied."  l  Without  fur- 

1  An  authentication  of  this  statement  may  be  found  in  "  A  true  Copy  of  the  Jour 
nal  of  the  High  Court  of  Justice  for  the  Tryal  of  King  Charles  I.,  as  it  was  read 
in  the  House  of  Commons  and  attested  under  the  hand  of  Phelps,  Clerk  to  that 
infamous  Court.  Taken  by  J.  Nalson,  LL.D.,  Jan.  4th,  1683,  London,  1684;"  in 
Fellowes's  Sketches:  — 

"  27th  Jan.  1648.  The  President  ordered  the  Court  to  withdraw  for  a  time.  This 
he  did  to  prevent  the  disturbance  of  their  scene,  by  one  of  their  own  members, 
Colonel  John  Downes,  who  could  not  stifle  the  reluctance  of  his  conscience  when  he 


THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  331 

ther  debate  the  Court  resumed  its  session  and  proceeded  to  pass 
the  sentence  of  death  by  beheading.  This  was  on  the  27th  of 
January,  1649.  On  the  29th  it  was  determined  that  the  open 
street  in  front  of  the  royal  palace  of  Whitehall  was  a  fit  place  for 
the  execution,  which  was  assigned  for  the  following  day.  The 
warrant  was  immediately  given. 

But  the  last  and  most  trying  duty,  that  of  affixing  their  indi 
vidual  signatures  to  the  fatal  order,  still  remained.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  some  of  them  should  have  shrunk  from  its  perform 
ance.  It  was  with  difficulty  the  Commissioners  could  be  got 
together  for  the  purpose.  Two  or  three  of  the  most  resolute  took 
their  station  outside  of  the  door  to  stop  such  of  their  colleagues 
as  were  passing  towards  the  House  of  Commons.  Cromwell 
sat  within,  boisterous,  overbearing,  and  in  high  spirits,  stimulat 
ing  and  even  forcing  the  timid  and  reluctant.  Some  who  had 
agreed  to  the  sentence  kept  out  of  the  way  or  utterly  refused  to 
sign.1  At  last  fifty-nine  signatures  were  obtained,  and  the  death- 
warrant  was  complete. 

Among  the  names  affixed  to  this  memorable  instrument  were 
those  of  the  three  individuals  to  a  brief  sketch  of  whose  personal 
history  it  is  high  time  to  turn  our  attention. 

EDWARD  WHALLEY  was  descended  from  an  ancient  and  highly 
respectable  family.  His  father  Richard,  a  member  of  Parliament, 
Sheriff  of  the  County  of  Nottingham  and  the  proprietor  of  large 
estates,  had  married  a  daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Cromwell,  uncle 

saw  his  Majesty  press  so  earnestly  for  a  short  hearing ;  but  declaring  himself  unsatis 
fied,  forced  them  to  yield  to  the  King's  request.  The  Court  withdraws  for  half  an 
hour  into  the  Court  of  Wards.  Their  business  was  not  to  consider  his  Majesty's 
desire,  but  to  chide  Downes,  and  with  reproaches  and  threats  to  harden  him  to  go 
through  the  remainder  of  their  villany  with  them.  Which  done  they  return." 

1  It  is  difficult  to  distinguish  between  what  is  true  and  what  is  false  in  the  accounts 
which  have  been  given  by  different  narrators  of  Cromwell's  behavior,  —  colored  as 
they  all  appear  to  be,  more  or  less,  in  accordance  with  the  prejudices  of  the  writers. 
There  must,  however,  have  been  some  foundation  in  his  actual  conduct  for  such 
stories  as  several  highly  respectable  historians  have  credited  and  recorded  as  facts  : 
for  example,  that  after  having  signed  himself,  he  smeared  the  face  of  the  reckless  wag 
Henry  Martin  with  ink, —  who  immediately  did  the  same  to  him  ;  and  that  when  his 
cousin,  Colonel  Ingoldsby,  who  had  been  appointed  one  of  the  Court,  but  never  took 
his  seat,  came  into  the  hall,  he  cried  out,  "  This  time  he  shall  not  escape,"  and  laugh 
ing,  seized  hold  of  him,  put  the  pen  into  his  hand,  and  with  the  aid  of  one  or  two 
others  forced  him  to  sign. 


332  THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

to  Oliver.  The  son  was  bred  a  merchant,  but  at  the  breaking  out 
of  the  civil  war,  under  the  influence  of  his  religious  convictions, 
more  than  for  any  other  reason,  took  up  arms  on  the  side  of  the 
Parliament,  in  opposition  to  the  sentiments  of  his  nearest  relations. 
He  distinguished  himself  as  a  soldier  in  many  sieges  and  battles. 
At  the  battle  of  Naseby,  in  1645,  he  charged  and  defeated  two 
divisions  of  Horse,  though  supported  by  Prince  Rupert  who  com 
manded  the  reserve :  for  which  brilliant  action  the  Parliament 
voted  him  a  commission  as  Colonel  of  Horse.  On  the  9th  of 
May  of  the  following  year,  he  received  for  his  valiant  service  in 
taking  Banbury  by  storm  one  hundred  pounds  to  purchase  two 
horses.  He  behaved  soon  after  with  great  gallantry  in  the  attack 
on  the  city  of  Worcester,  which  surrendered  to  him  on  the  23d 
of  July.  In  1647  the  Commons  granted  him  one  of  the  manors 
of  the  Marquis,  afterwards  Duke,  of  Newcastle. 

He  enjoyed  the  full  confidence  of  his  cousin  Cromwell,  who 
appears  to  have  had  great  influence  over  him,  and  while  com 
mitting  to  him  important  trusts  and  conferring  upon  him  high 
offices,  to  have  sometimes  used  him,  perhaps  more  than  Whalley 
himself  was  aware,  as  a  tool  of  his  crafty  policy. 

He  committed  to  his  custody  the  person  of  the  King  during 
his  confinement  at  Hampton  Court.  Of  the  manner  in  which 
he  discharged  the  duties  of  this  office,  conflicting  accounts  are 
given,  according  as  the  prejudices  of  the  writers  who  have  re 
ferred  to  it  lean  to  the  side  of  the  royalists  or  the  army.  The 
former  charge  him  with  coarseness  and  undue  severity.  But  a 
letter  subsequently  addressed  to  him  by  the  King  is  his  sufficient 
exculpation.  And  yet  he  did  not  always  avoid  giving  offence 
under  circumstances  so  conducive  to  irritation.  Clarendon  tells 
us  that,  on  one  occasion,  when  Captain  Sayers  waited  upon  his 
Majesty  to  give  back  to  him  the  ensigns  of  the  Order  of  the 
Garter,  which  had  belonged  to  the  late  Prince  of  Orange,  and 
the  two  were  walking  forward  and  backward  together,  the  sus 
picions  of  Whalley  were  aroused  to  such  a  degree  that  he 
stepped  forward  to  interfere ;  whereupon  the  exasperated  monarch 
pushed  him  away  and  indignantly  raised  his  cane  as  if  to  chas 
tise  him  for  the  affront. 

It  has  always  been  supposed  that  the  escape  of  the  King 
from  Hampton  Court  was  not  effected  without  the  connivance 


THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  333 

of  his  guardian,  who  induced  him  to  make  the  attempt  by  alarm 
ing  him  with  the  stories  of  a  design  to  take  his  life.  It  is 
certain  that  on  the  very  day  of  his  flight  Whalley  read  to  him  a 
letter  which  he  said  had  been  secretly  delivered  to  him,  intimat 
ing  that  the  agitators  in  the  army  had  formed  a  design  to  sur 
prise  and  assassinate  him.  The  authorship  of  the  letter  has 
been  generally  attributed  to  Cromwell,  who  is  supposed  to  have 
written  it  for  the  purpose  of  working  upon  the  fears  of  the 
King  in  order  to  induce  him  voluntarily  to  take  a  step  which 
would  remove  him  out  of  the  custody  of  the  Parliament,  and 
bring  him  more  completely  into  his  own  power.1 

At  the  battle  of  Dunbar  in  1650,  he  was  associated  with  Monk 
in  command  of  the  Foot,  and  having  greatly  contributed  to  the 
rout  of  the  Scottish  army,  he  was  left  by  Cromwell  in  Scotland 
with  the  rank  of  Commissary  General  and  the  command  of 
four  regiments  of  Horse. 

After  Oliver's  elevation  he  was  intrusted  by  him  with  the 
government  of  the  Counties  of  Lincoln,  Nottingham,  Derby, 
Warwick,  and  Leicester,  with  the  title  of  Major  General;  in 
which  office  he  was  so  assiduous,  that,  as  he  himself  says,  he  did 
not  leave  a  single  vagrant  in  a  whole  county.  He  was  represent 
ative  for  Nottinghamshire  in  the  Parliaments  of  1654  and  1656, 
and  raised  by  the  Protector  to  his  Upper  House.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  so  fond  of  this  honor  that  he  threatened  to  cane 


1  If  those  who  have  suggested  this  explanation  had  examined  the  curious  and  in 
teresting  book,  entitled  "  Cromwelliana,"  they  would  have  found  an  extract  from 
Colonel  Whalley's  own  statement  in  answer  to  a  question  put  to  him  by  the  House 
of  Commons,  which  places  the  authorship  of  the  letter  beyond  a  question,  and  con 
firms  the  suspicion  as  to  the  motives  of  the  writer.  "  And  whereas,  Mr.  Speaker," 
these  are  his  words,  "  you  demand  of  me  what  that  letter  was  I  showed  the  King  the 
day  he  went  away,  the  letter  I  will  show  you :  but  with  your  leave  I  shall  first 
acquaint  you  with  the  author  and  the  ground  of  my  showing  it  to  the  King.  The 
author  is  Lieutenant  General  Cromwell.  The  ground  of  my  showing  it  is  this  :  the 
letter  intimates  some  murderous  design,  or  at  least  some  fear  of  it  against  the  King. 
When  I  read  the  letter  I  was  much  astonished,  abhorring  that  such  a  thing  should 
be  done,  or  so  much  as  thought  of,  by  any  that  bear  the  name  of  Christians.  When 
I  had  shown  the  letter  to  his  Majesty,  I  told  him  I  was  sent  to  safeguard,  and  not  to 
murther  him  ;  I  wished  him  to  be  confident  no  such  thing  should  be  done,  I  would 
first  die  at  his  foot  in  his  defence ;  and  therefore  I  showed  it  him,  that  he  might  be 
reassured,  though  menacing  speeches  came  frequently  to  his  ear,  our  General  Offi 
cers  abhorred  so  bloody  and  villainous  a  fact.  Another  reason  was  that  I  might  get 
a  nearer  admittance  to  his  Majesty  that  so  I  might  better  secure  him,"  &c. 


334  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

Colonel  Ashfield  in  Westminster  Hall  for  speaking  derisively  of 
this  quasi  House  of  Lords.  The  valiant  Colonel,  however,  hav 
ing  set  him  at  defiance,  he  prudently  abstained  from  executing 
the  menace ;  but  went  away  and  complained  of  him  to  the  Pro 
tector  Richard,  who  told  the  Colonel  that  unless  he  would  ask 
pardon  for  the  offence  he  would  cashier  him  for  using  disrespect 
ful  language  to  his  superior  officers.  The  Colonel,  no  wise 
daunted,  petitioned  to  have  a  fair  hearing,  —  a  demand  which  the 
Protector  could  not  well  refuse;  but  himself  selected  the  officers 
to  whom  the  case  should  be  referred,  and  they,  of  course,  decided 
that  the  fault  should  be  humbly  acknowledged  and  "  my  Lord 
Whalley's  "  pardon  asked.  To  this  sentence,  however,  the  stub 
born  Colonel  absolutely  refused  to  submit.1 

When  a  proposition  was  made  in  Parliament  to  make  Crom 
well  king,  Whalley,  notwithstanding  the  great  obligations  which 
he  was  under  to  his  powerful  relative,  and  his  dependence  upon 
him  for  high  and  lucrative  offices,  strenuously  opposed  the  meas 
ure.2  His  name  appears  among  the  signers  of  the  Proclama 
tion  for  the  succession  of  Richard  Cromwell  to  the  Protectorate 
on  the  death  of  Oliver,  the  3d  of  September,  1658.  After  the 
resignation  of  Richard  he  became  an  object  of  jealousy  to  the 
Parliament  as  having  too  much  interest  with  the  army,  for  which 
reason  they  took  away  his  command ;  but  this,  it  is  said,  only 
endeared  him  to  the  soldiers  the  more. 

It  deserves  to  be  mentioned  as  an  evidence  of  the  high  esteem 
in  which  the  character  of  Whaliey  was  held  among  men  of  dis 
crimination  and  worth,  that  the  celebrated  Richard  Baxter,  author 

1  Ludlow  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  pp.  632,  633. 

2  The  fact  is  thus  stated  by  several  writers.    I  do  not  find  any  notice  of  Whalley's 
having  opposed  the  measure  in  the  Parliament  itself.     The  account  given  by  White- 
lock  is  as  follows  :  "  Dec.  10,  1651,  Cromwell  called  a  meeting  of  divers  members  of 
Parliament,  and  some  chief  officers  of  the  army,  at  the  Speaker's  house,  and  pro 
posed  to  them  that  now,  the  old  King  being  dead  and  his  son  defeated,  he  held  it 
necessary  to  proceed  to  a  settlement  of  the  Nation."  ..."  Cromwell  discovered 
their  inclinations  for  which  he  fished,  and  made  use  of  what  he  then  discerned.     He 
said  he  really  thought  that  a  settlement  of  somewhat  with  monarchical  government  in  it 
would  be  very  effectual."  ..."  Whalley  said,  I  do  not  well  understand  matters  of 
law;  but  it  seems  to  me  the  best  way  not  to  have  any  thing  of  monarchical  power 
in  the  settlement  of  our  Government,  and  if  we  should  resolve  upon  any,  whom 
have  we  to  pitch  upon  ?"..."  Cromwell  put  off  the  debate  when  it  turned  towards 
making  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  the  King's  third  son,  king." 


THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  335 

of  the  "  Saints'  Rest,"  one  of  the  ablest  ministers  and  most 
voluminous  writers  of  his  age,  who  had  been  chaplain  in  his 
regiment,  dedicated  to  him  one  of  his  practical  works  with  ex 
pressions  of  sincere  friendship  and  respect.  It  was  at  the  time 
when  he  was  enjoying  the  high  offices  to  which  he  had  been 
promoted  by  his  Cousin  Cromwell.  How  singularly  must  the 
closing  words  of  this  complimentary  inscription  have  affected 
the  mind  of  him  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  if  they  were  ever 
recalled  to  his  remembrance  in  the  low  estate  to  which  he  was 
subsequently  reduced!  How  must  they  have  impressed  him  with 
the  uncertainty  of  earthly  honors,  as  they  brought  forcibly  to  his 
thought  the  strong  contrast  between  the  prosperous  career  which 
his  friend  blindly  predicted  for  him  as  the  source  of  his  trial,  and 
the  miserable  and  lonely  condition  from  which  his  temptations 
actually  arose !  "  Think  not  that  your  greatest  trials  are  now 
over.  Prosperity  hath  its  peculiar  temptations  by  which  it  hath 
foiled  many  that  stood  unshaken  in  the  storms  of  adversity. 
The  tempter  who  hath  had  you  on  the  waves,  will  now  assault 
you  in  the  calm,  and  hath  his  last  game  to  play  on  the  mountains, 
till  nature  cause  you  to  descend.  Stand  this  charge  and  you 
win  the  day."  l 

WILLIAM  GOFFE  was  a  son  of  a  puritanical  clergyman, 
Rector  of  Stanmore  in  Sussex.  The  political  and  religious  ex 
citement  of  the  times,  acting  upon  an  ardent  and  somewhat  rest 
less  nature,  led  him  to  exchange  the  quiet  duties  of  the  business 
to  which  he  had  been  brought  up  for  the  stirring  life  of  a  soldier. 
The  influences  of  his  early  education  determined  the  direction 
of  his  interest  in  the  conflict  between  the  Commons  and  the  King. 
Enlisting  with  enthusiasm  in  the  army  of  the  Parliament,  he  rose 
by  rapid  gradations  to  a  high  rank.  Though  not  liberally  edu 
cated,  he  is  mentioned  in  the  Fasti  Oxonienses  as  having  re 
ceived  the  honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  In  the  account 

1  Baxter's  Practical  Works,  Orme's  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  453. 

In  Josiab  Ricroft's  "  Survey  of  England's  Champions  and  Truth's  faithful  Patri 
ots,  published  by  Authority,  London,  1647,"  is  the  following  tribute  to  Whalley : 
"I  must  not  forget  another  of  the  valiant  Commanders,  Colonell  Whalley,  a 
man  of  honour  and  of  trust,  who  deserves  as  much  of  the  King  and  Parliament  as 
the  best  of  the  Commanders  in  his  Excellency  Thomas  Fairfax's  army  (now  resi 
dent)  one  only  excepted." 


336  THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

there  given  of  him,  it  is  said  that  he  was  "  a  frequent  prayer- 
maker,  preacher,  and  presser  for  righteousness  and  freedom,  and 
therefore  in  high  esteem  in  the  army."  He  was  a  devoted  par 
tisan  of  Cromwell,  and  ever  ready  to  execute  his  will.  He 
assisted  Colonel  White  in  forcibly  ejecting  the  members  that 
were  left  behind  of  the  "  Little"  or  "  Barebones"  Parliament,  in 
1653.  For  this  and  other  services  he  received  from  the  Protec 
tor  the  honorable  and  lucrative  post  of  Major  General  of  Hamp 
shire,  Sussex,  and  Berks.  He  was  a  member  for  Great  Yarmouth 
in  the  Parliament  of  1654,  and  for  Southampton  in  1656,  and 
was  called  up  to  the  Protector's  House  of  Lords.  His  name 
appears,  together  with  that  of  Whalley,  whose  daughter  he  had 
married,  in  the  order  for  proclaiming  Richard  Cromwell  Protec 
tor  after  his  father's  death. 

In  Burton's  "  Parliamentary  Diary,"  there  is  a  brief  and  some 
what  curious  notice  of  one  of  Goffe's  speeches  in  Parliament. 
"Jan.  19,  1656,  Sir  Gilbert  Pickering  said,  on  the  question  of 
voting  an  address  to  Cromwell,  — 

"  If  it  were  not  against  the  orders  of  the  House  to  call  upon  any  man 
fo  speak,  there  was  a  very  good  pattern  propounded  to  us  as  to  the  man 
ner  of  addresses  to  his  Highness,  upon  another  occasion  about  three  or 
four  months  ago.  I  wish  we  might  follow  that  way.  I  remember  very 
well  what  this  speech  was  and  who  spoke  it.  It  was  Major  General 
Goffe,  upon  the  debate  about  the  thanksgiving  for  the  late  victory  from 
Spain.  It  was  a  long  preachment,  seriously  inviting  the  House  to  a  firm, 
and  kind  of  corporal,  union  with  his  Highness.  Something  was  expressed 
as  to  hanging  about  his  neck  like  pearls,  from  a  text  out  of  Canticles." 
"  Major  General  Goffe,"  says  Burton,  "  tickled,  I  believe,  by  Sir  Gilbert 
Pickering's  call,  stood  up  and  expressed  his  favorable  opinion  of  the  pro 
posed  congratulation  of  Cromwell  upon  his  great  deliverance  and  desired 
the  Speaker  to  express  our  sense  of  the  former  deliverances  of  his  High 
ness,  both  public  and  private,  upon  whose  preservation  much  of  ours  did 
depend.  He  then  repeated  something  of  his  former  preachment." 

JOHN  DIXWELL  was  a  cadet  of  the  Dixwells  of  Kent,  an 
ancient  and  wealthy  family,  raised  to  the  Baronetage.  His  elder 
brother,  who  died  in  1643,  left  his  large  estate  and  his  children, 
all  minors,  in  his  charge.  A  country  gentleman,  of  independent 
means,  and  good  education,  who  had  nothing  to  gain,  but  much 
to  lose  by  changes,  every  selfish  interest  would  have  induced  him 


THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  337 

to  withhold  himself  from  the  revolutionary  party,  if  not  to  take 
sides  against  it.  But  his  judgment  and  his  conscience  moved 
him  to  engage  in  what  he  believed  to  be  the  cause  of  freedom 
and  of  God.  Enlisting  in  the  Parliamentary  army,  he  soon  dis 
tinguished  himself  as  a  soldier  and  rose  to  the  rank  of  a  Colonel 
of  Foot. 

He  was  a  member  of  all  the  Parliaments  of  the  Common 
wealth,  with  the  single  exception  of  that  called  the  "  Little  "  or 
"  Barebones."  It  appears  from  a  careful  and  thorough  copy  — 
now  in  the  possession  of  his  descendant,  John  James  Dixwell, 
Esq.  —  of  every  entry  in  the  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons 
in  which  the  name  of  Colonel  Dixwell  occurs,  that  he  was  an 
active  and  distinguished  member.  The  frequency  of  his  appoint 
ment  on  important  Committees  and  the  nature  of  the  questions 
submitted  to  his  decision  show  the  high  consideration  in  which 
he  was  held  as  a  man  of  sound  judgment,  firm  purpose,  and  prac 
tical  ability. 

He  was  several  times  chosen  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
State  from  the  year  1651  to  1659,  and  in  the  latter  year  was  com 
missioned  Lieutenant  of  Dover  Castle. 

On  the  29th  of  May,  1660,  Charles  II.  entered  London, 
amidst  the  acclamations  of  the  people,  to  take  possession  of  the 
throne  from  which  he  had  been  so  long  excluded.  In  anticipa 
tion  of  this  event,  the  three  individuals  whose  career  we  have 
thus  far  sketched,  hastily  fled  from  the  vengeance  which  they 
knew  was  in  store  for  them  if  they  remained  in  England ;  — 
Whalley  and  Goffe  to  America,  and  Dixwell  first  to  Hanau,  in 
Germany,  and  afterwards  to  New  England. 

The  two  former  left  Westminster  on  the  4th  of  May  and  ar 
rived  in  Boston  the  27th  of  July ;  bringing  testimonials  from 
various  ministers  in  high  esteem  among  their  brethren  here.  By 
the  same  vessel  which  brought  them  over  came  the  news  of  the 
King's  accession.  They  attempted  no  concealment  of  their  per 
sons  or  characters ;  for  the  action  of  Parliament  in  regard  to  them 
had  not  yet  been  promulgated.  Immediately  on  landing  they 
called  upon  Governor  Endicott  who  gave  them  a  courteous  wel 
come,  and  the  same  day  proceeded  to  Cambridge,  where  it  was 
their  intention  to  reside.  The  high  rank  and  social  position 

22 


338  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

which  they  had  sustained  in  England,  together  with  the  gravity 
and  dignity  of  their  manners,  secured  for  them  general  respect. 
They  were  admitted  into  the  best  society  and  met  with  marked 
attention.  They  attended  public  worship  and  lectures,  took  part 
in  private  devotional  meetings,  and  were  allowed  to  partake  of 
the  Communion. 

Among  those  who  treated  them  with  such  deference  there  were 
undoubtedly  some  who  like  Mitchell,  the  minister  of  Cambridge, 
were  not  fully  aware,  at  the  moment,  of  the  exact  relation  in 
which  they  stood  to  the  laws  of  their  country.  Writing,  subse 
quently,  in  his  own  vindication,  Mitchell  says, x<  Since  I  have  had 
opportunity,  by  reading  and  discourse,  to  look  into  that  action 
for  which  these  men  suffer,  I  could  never  see  that  it  was  justi 
fiable." 

The  Act  of  Indemnity,  in  which  Whalley  and  Goffe  were  ex- 
cepted  absolutely  as  to  life  and  estate,  reached  Massachusetts  in 
November.  It  produced  excitement  and  alarm ;  but  was  met 
by  the  members  of  the  General  Court  with  a  divided  feeling ; 
some  being  inclined  to  protect  the  exiles  at  every  hazard ;  a  few 
doubtful  whether  it  might  not  be  their  duty  to  secure  their  per 
sons  ;  and  others  disposed  to  give  them  opportunity  to  escape,  so 
far  as  it  could  be  done  without  openly  conflicting  with  the  royal 
government.  On  the  21st  of  February,  1661,  the  Governor  sum 
moned  the  Assistants  to  advise  him  as  to  the  manner  of  dealing 
with  them ;  but  they  came  to  no  agreement.  Four  days  after, 
the  refugees  themselves  relieved  the  Magistrates  from  em 
barrassment  by  privately  leaving  Cambridge  under  an  escort 
furnished  by  their  friends,  and  making  their  way  to  New 
Haven. 

On  their  journey  thither,  wThich  occupied  nine  days,  they 
stopped  for  a  short  time  at  Hartford,  where  they  met  with  a  kind 
reception  from  John  Winthrop,  Jr.,  Governor  of  the  Colony  of 
Connecticut,  or  Hartford,  which  had  not  at  that  time  been  con 
solidated  with  the  Colony  of  New  Haven.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  their  coming  to  New  Haven  was  not  wholly  unexpected  ; 
at  least  by  the.  Rev.  John  Davenport,  one  of  the  noble  founders 
of  that  Colony,  and  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  influential  of  the 
ministers  of  New  England,  —  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  in  his 
old  age  removed  to  Boston  and  became  a  minister  of  the  First 


THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  339 

Church.1  About  the  time  of  their  arrival,  as  if  to  predispose  the 
minds  of  the  people  in  their  favor,  he  preached  a  sermon  which 
is  still  extant  in  print,  in  the  course  of  which  he  gave  utterance 
to  these  bold  and,  under  the  circumstances,  "  almost  treasonable  " 
words  :  — 

"  Withhold  not  countenance,  entertainment,  and  protection  from  the  peo 
ple  of  God  —  whom  men  may  call  fools  and  fanatics  —  if  any  such  come 
to  you  from  other  countries,  as  from  France  or  England,  or  any  other 
place.  Be  not  forgetful  to  entertain  strangers.  Remember  those  that  are 
in  bonds  as  bound  with  them.  Hide  the  outcasts,  bewray  not  him  that 
wandereth.  Let  mine  outcasts  dwell  with  thee.  Be  thou  a  covert  to 
them  from  the  face  of  the  spoiler." 

The  Regicides  themselves  had  special  reason  to  expect  friendly 
treatment  in  New  Haven.  It  had  long  been  the  home  of  a  sister 
of  General  Whalley,  the  amiable  wife  of  Rev.  William  Hooke, 
for  twelve  years  Mr.  Davenport's  colleague ;  and  William  Jones, 
whose  father  suffered  death  as  one  of  the  King's  judges,  had 
recently  come  from  England,  and  taken  up  his  residence  there. 
Their  reception  was  as  cordial  as  they  could  have  desired.  They 
took  up  their  abode  in  Mr.  Davenport's  house,  and  for  several 
weeks  held  intercourse  with  the  ministers  and  magistrates,  with 
little  or  no  reserve.  Meanwhile  the  King's  Proclamation  for 
their  arrest  as  traitors  and  murderers  had  been  received  at  Bos 
ton,  and  news  of  its  arrival  followed  them  to  New  Haven.  Aware 
of  their  peril  and  to  mislead  any  who  might  be  sent  to  apprehend 
them,  they  removed  in  open  daylight  to  Milford,  and  there  made 
themselves  known  ;  but  returned  covertly  at  night,  and  for  more 
than  a  week  lay  secreted  in  Mr.  Davenport's  cellar,  where  what 
purports  to  have  been  their  hiding-place  is  still  shown. 

But  a  more  serious  danger  was  imminent.  One  Captain  Bree- 
don,  having  carried  to  England  information  that  he  had  seen 

1  In  a  letter  from  Davenport  to  John  Winthrop,  Jr.,  dated  the  eleventh  day  of 
August,  1660  (it  will  be  remembered  that  the  Regicides  arrived  in  Boston,  July  27th), 
he  says,  "  The  two  gentlemen  of  great  quality  arrived  in  the  Bay  are  Commissary 
General  Whalley,  Sister  Hooke's  brother,  and  his  son  in  law  who  is  with  him  is 
Colonel  Goffe  :  boath  godly  men,  and  escaped  persute  in  Engl.  narrowly.  I  hope  to 
see  them  here  after  the  Commissioners  are  gone,  if  not  before.  I  might  hope  to  see 
them  before,  upon  my  letter,  but  I  defer  that  on  purpose  that  your  chamber  may  be  free 
for  your  reception  and  Mrs.  Winthrope's  when  the  Commissioners  meete."  The 
letter  may  be  seen  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  vol.  x.,  series  3. 


340  THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

them  at  Boston,  a  royal  order  was  despatched  to  the  Colonial 
government  peremptorily  demanding  their  arrest.  Endicott,  to 
whom  it  was  transmitted,  could  do  no  less  than  appear  to  interest 
himself  to  put  it  in  execution.1  Without  taking  the  advice  of 
his  Council,  and,  as  it  seems,  not  in  full  accordance  with  the  feel 
ing  of  some  of  the  Deputies,  he  gave  Commission  to  two  young 
men  who  had  recently  come  from  England  for  purposes  of  trade, 
Thomas  Kirk  and  Thomas  Kellond,  to  search  throughout  Massa 
chusetts;  and  furnished  them  with  letters  to  the  Governors  of 
the  other  Colonies. 

These  two  young  royalists,  strangers  in  the  country,  and  sure 
to  excite  observation  wherever  they  should  go,  started  imme 
diately  on  the  track  of  the  fugitives.  At  Hartford  Governor 
Winthrop  informed  them  that  they  had  not  long  before  passed 
out  of  that  town  on  their  way  to  New  Haven.  The  pursuers, 
taking  the  same  direction,  on  reaching  Guilford,  stopped  at  the 
residence  of  the  Deputy  Governor  Leete.  They  showed  him 

1  Regard  for  truth  compels  the  remark  that  there  is  reason  to  suspect  the  sin 
cerity  of  more  than  one  of  the  magistrates  and  principal  men  of  the  Colonies  of  Massa 
chusetts  and  New  Haven  in  their  dealing  with  the  Home  government,  and  in  their 
statements,  respecting  the  Regicides.  Colonel  Temple,  in  a  letter  dated  Boston,  20th 
August,  1661,  to  "  Mr.  Secretary  Morice,  about  Goffe  and  Wlialley,"  asserts,  it  may 
be  with  truth,  that  he  "  had  used  all  the  diligence  and  industry  he  was  capable  of  in 
endeavors  to  discover  and  apprehend  the  Regicides'' ;  but  says  that  he  "  had  been  in 
formed  by  Mr.  Pinchin  (Pynchon)  and  Captain  Lord,  residents  of  the  Southern  parts, 
that  they  are  concealed  there,"  and  that  he  has  "joyned  himself"  with  them  "in  a 
secret  designe,  only  knowne  to  us  three,  to  secure  their  persons."  It  is  possible  that 
Mr.  Pynchon  was  in  earnest,  but  if  he  had  been  really  so,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand 
how  he  could  have  failed  to  discover  their  place  of  concealment  at  Hadley,  so  near 
to  his  own  residence. 

Governor  Bradstreet  writes  to  the  Lords  of  his  Majesty's  Privy  Council,  Boston, 
May  16,  1680,  "  I  understand  there  have  been  misinformacons  presented  to  his 
Majesty,  and  amongst  others  that  the  Inhabitants  here  have  protected  the  murtherers 
of  his  Majesties  Royall  Father,  in  Contempt  of  his  Majesties  proclamation  of  the  6th 
of  June  1660,  which  is  manifestly  untrue." 

John  Davenport  writes  to  Temple,  "19  day  6  m.  1661,"  that  he  had  sent  an 
Apology  to  the  Deputy  Governor  of  Massachusetts  to  be  communicated  to  the  Gen 
eral  Court,  in  which  he  "  will  finde  his  innocency  in  reference  to  the  two  Colonels, 
and  that  of  the  this  poore  Coloney,  of  our  Governor  and  Majestrates,  who  wanted 
neither  will  nor  Industery  to  have  served  his  Majtie  in  apprehending  the  2  Collonells, 
but  were  Prevented  and  Hindered  by  god's  overruilling  Providence,  which  withheld 
them  that  they  could  not  exciqute  their  true  Purpose  therein.  I  believe  if  his 
Majestic  Rightly  understood  the  Curcumstances  of  the  Event  he  would  not  be  dis 
pleased  with  our  Majistrates,  but  to  accquiesce  in  the  Providence  of  the  most  high." 
(Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  rol.  xviii.  pp.  328-9.) 


THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  341 

their  warrant  and  demanded  to  be  furnished  with  horses  for  their 
journey  and  "  aid  and  power  to  search  and  apprehend  "  the  refu 
gees.  A  person  told  them  that  the  Colonels  were  secreted  in 
Mr.  Davenport's  house,  "  and  that  without  all  question  Deputy 
Leete  knew  as  much."  1  He  put  them  off  on  various  pretences 
till  after  the  Sabbath,  which  occurred  on  the  day  succeeding  the 
interview.  Meanwhile  a  messenger  was  secretly  despatched  to 
give  timely  warning  at  New  Haven.  On  Monday  the  two 
messengers  set  out  on  their  journey ;  the  Governor  following  them 
at  a  more  moderate  pace.  On  their  arrival  at  the  capital,  he 
received  them  at  the  Court  Chamber :  when  they  informed  him 
that  they  had  reason  to  believe  that  those  whom  they  sought 
were  concealed  in  New  Haven,  and  required  assistance  for  their 
arrest.  He  replied  that  he  "  did  not  believe  the  story ;  that  he 
could  not  and  would  not  make  them  magistrates."  They  charged 
him  with  despising  his  Majesty's  authority,  and  with  his  willing 
ness  to  connive  at  the  escape  of  his  traitorous  subjects.  He  then 
left  them,  and  after  a  long  consultation  with  the  magistrates, 
broke  up  the  Council ;  declaring  that  they  "  neither  would  nor 
could  do  any  thing  until  they  had  called  a  General  Court  of  the 
freemen."  2 

Thwarted  at  every  point  by  the  magistrates,  whom  they 
found,  as  they  said,  "  obstinate  and  pertinacious  in  their  con 
tempt  of  his  Majesty,"  and,  in  all  probability,  purposely  put  upon 
a  false  scent,  the  messengers  started  off  for  New  Netherlands ; 
and  after  a  fruitless  search  returned  by  water  to  Boston. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  intelligence  of  the  appointment  of 
these  Commissioners,  and  of  all  their  movements,  had  been 
secretly  conveyed  to  the  fugitives ;  for  before  they  had  left 
Boston,  they  had  removed  from  the  house  of  Mr.  Davenport  to 
that  of  William  Jones,  afterwards  Deputy  Governor  ;  and  during 
the  conference  with  Governor  Leete  at  Guilford,  they  were  con 
veyed  to  a  secluded  mill,  two  miles  to  the  north-west  of  New 
Haven.  From  thence,  after  two  nights,  they  were  conducted  to 
a  spot  called  Hatchet  Harbor ;  and  shortly  after,  to  a  rude  covert 
of  large  stones  on  the  eastern  side,  and  near  the  summit  of  West 
Rock,  still  nearer  to  the  town ;  "  being  supplied  with  food  from  a 

1  Stiles's  Judges.     Hutchinson's  Coll.    Dr.  Palfrey's  Hist,  of  New  England. 

2  Report  of  Kellond  and  Kirk  in  Hutch.  Coll.  p.  334. 


342  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

lonely  farm-house  in  the  neighborhood."  Having  remained  in 
their  hiding-place  a  few  months,  occasionally  showing  themselves 
in  New  Haven  and  elsewhere,  from  the  honorable  motive  of 
relieving  Mr.  Davenport  of  the  suspicion  of  concealing  them, 
they  took  shelter  in  a  house  in  Milford,  where  they  stayed  for 
two  years  in  entire  seclusion.  At  length,  just  as  they  were 
beginning  to  enjoy  a  feeling  of  comparative  security,  and  to 
indulge  themselves  with  occasional  intercourse  with  their  worthy 
neighbors,  the  tidings  reached  them  of  the  expected  arrival  at 
Boston  of  Commissioners  from  England  with  extraordinary 
powers,  whose  coming  might  subject  them,  and  their  protectors 
also,  to  new  dangers.  This  intelligence  caused  them  once  more 
to  make  a  hasty  retreat  to  their  long  since  abandoned  cave. 
But  being  discovered  by  a  party  of  Indians,  hunting  in  the 
woods,  who  might  be  induced  by  the  offer  of  large  rewards  to 
betray  them,  they  took  their  departure  for  the  secluded  town  of 
Hadley,  then  far  in  the  wilderness  on  the  north-western  frontier 
of  New  England,  travelling  only  by  night.  Here  a  shelter  had 
been  prepared  for  them,  under  the  roof  of  the  worthy  minister 
of  the  place,  the  Rev.  John  Russell.  A  considerable  addition 
had  recently  been  made  to  his  house,  which  was  now  large  and 
double,  containing  many  rooms  and  closets.  In  one  of  the 
latter  in  the  garret,  having  doors  opening  into  two  chambers,  the 
floor  boards  could  be  slipped  aside  so  as  to  admit  of  access  to  a 
dark  under  closet-,  near  the  old-fashioned  chimney;  from  which, 
perhaps,  there  was  originally  a  passage-way  into  the  cellar.  To 
this  secure  hiding-place  they  could  retreat,  in  case  a  search 
should  be  made  of  the  premises. 

They  reached  Hadley  on  the  thirteenth  of  October,  1664,  no 
one  in  the  place  being  aware  of  their  arrival  except  the  family 
of  Mr.  Russell,  and  one  or  two  trusty  persons  among  the  prin 
cipal  inhabitants,  from  whom  they  received  the  kindest  attention. 
They  were  enabled,  through  safe  hands,  to  keep  up  a  correspond 
ence  with  their  friends  in  Old  and  New  England.  Their  letters 
dated  from  "  Ebenezer,"  the  name  which  they  gave  to  their 
several  places  of  refuge,  were  often  conveyed  to  Boston  by  the 
representative  from  Hadley,  Peter  Tilton,  —  those  for  England 
being  intrusted,  as  we  have  found,  to  Rev.  Increase  Mather, 
who  transmitted  them  under  cover  in  his  own  handwriting  to 


THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  343 

some  confidential  correspondent  who  could  forward  them  to 
their  destination.  Goffe  wrote,  occasionally,  to  Mather  himself, 
upon  religious  and  political  topics,  always  expressing  the  highest 
esteem  for  his  person  and  a  deep  sense  of  obligation  for  his 
favors.1  They  appear  to  have  been  kept  well  informed  of  all 
important  public  events  in  both  countries,  and  to  have  been 
abundantly  supplied  with  the  means  of  subsistence.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  they  were  occasionally  visited  in  their 
retreat  by  such  men  as  Governor  Leverett,  Mr.  Richard  Salton- 
stall,2  and  their  old  friend  Mr.  Davenport. 

It  is  certainly  a  matter  of  surprise  that  their  secret  could  have 
been  so  well  kept.  The  people  of  Hadley  appear  to  have  been 
ignorant  of  their  residence  among  them,  and  it  is  probable  that 
very  few  persons,  even  among  the  most  intimate  associates 
of  their  protectors,  had  any  knowledge  of  their  place  of  con 
cealment.  Governor  Bradstreet  in  a  letter  to  Randolph,  in 

1  Among  the  correspondents  of  Goffe  was  Kev.  William  Hooke.     Several  of  hia 
letters  may  be  seen  in  the  Mather  Papers.     He  writes  under  the  signature  D.  G. 
Goffe's  wife  and  children  were  for  a  time  in  his  family. 

He  was  Master  of  Arts  at  Oxford  in  1623,  and  after  a  short  ministry  in  Devon 
shire,  being  persecuted  for  non-conformity,  sought  refuge  in  New  England.  He 
was  minister  of  Taunton  in  1637,  soon  after  the  settlement  of  that  town,  and  sub 
sequently  settled  at  New  Haven,  as  Mr.  Davenport's  colleague.  After  the  elevation 
of  Cromwell  —  cousin  of  his  wife,  who  was  Whalley's  sister  —  to  the  Protectorate, 
and  \yhen  his  brother-in-law  Whalley  had  been  elevated  to  high  office,  he  went  back 
to  his  native  country,  not  because  he  loved  New  England  less,  but  Old  England 
more.  He  probably  thought  that  he  could  serve  the  land  of  his  adoption  better  at 
the  Court  of  England,  and  close  to  the  ear  of  its  powerful  ruler.  He  embarked  for 
home  in  1656,  and  was  received  by  Cromwell  with  such  favor  as  to  be  appointed  one 
of  his  domestic  chaplains  in  the  royal  palace  of  Whitehall. 

Several  letters  from  his  wife,  Jane  Hooke,  are  printed  in  the  Mather  Papers.  She 
refers  to  the  Regicides,  to  whom  as  well  as  to  several  poor  ministers,  she  often  sent 
contributions  of  money  and  clothing.  Her  correspondence  proves  her  to  have  been 
a  truly  devout,  amiable,  and  charitable  woman.  She  deserves  to  be  remembered 
among  the  benefactors  of  New  England.  The  only  fault  to  be  found  with  her  letters 
is  the  wretched  spelling  and  punctuation. 

2  Richard  Saltonstall,  Jr.,  son  of  Sir  Richard,  came  to  New  England,  with  his 
father,  in  1630,  was  admitted  freeman  of  Massachusetts,  Oct.  18,  1631,  and  the  next 
year  went  back  to  England.     He  returned  to  Massachusetts  in  1635,  was  Represen 
tative  in  1636,  and  Assistant  in  1637.     He  sailed  again  for  England  in  1649 ;  again 
came  back,  and  again  sailed  in  1672.    He  was  once  more  in  Massachusetts  in  1680, 
and  made  Assistant ;  but  left  for  England  in  1682,  and  died  in  April,  1694.     He  left 
fifty  pounds  in  the  hands  of  Edward  Collins,  of  Charlestown,  for  the  Regicides, 
when  he  went  to  England  in*  1672.     See  the  correspondence  on  this  subject  in  the 
Mather  Papers,  pp.  134,  136. 


344  THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

1684,1  says,  that  "  Whalley  and  Goff  were  never  hid  or  secured 
here,  that  ever  I  could  heare  of."  It  would  seem  not  only  that  no 
one  was  willing  to  betray  them,  but  that  every  one  purposely 
endeavored  not  to  know  where  they  were.  Such  tender  com 
passion,  and  such  delicate  and  even  sacred  consideration  for 
these  hunted  exiles,  whose  greatest  crime  was  a  desperate  blow 
at  oppression,  and  who  had  confidingly  thrown  themselves 
upon  their  protection,  are  among  those  noble  traits  in  the 
character  of  our  Fathers,  which  claim  honorable  commemora 
tion  from  their  descendants,  and  should  never  fail  —  as,  thank 
God,  they  seldom  have  failed  —  to  excite  their  generous  emu 
lation. 

Several  letters  which  passed  between  Goffe  and  his  wife,  the 
daughter  of  Whalley,  were  long  ago  printed  by  Governor 
Hutchinson ;  and  others,  found  among  the  Mather  Papers,  have 
been  published  in  the  last  volume  of  our  Historical  Collections. 
It  is  impossible  for  any  who  has  a  heart,  to  read  them  without 
almost  tearful  emotion.  They  are  full  of  the  tenderest  expres 
sions  of  endearment  for  each  other,  mingled  with  a  sublime  trust 
in  Providence,  and  the  most  humble  and  docile  submission. 
While  they  give  evidence  of  bitter  and  unintermitted  sorrow  and 
loneliness,  they  betray  no  tremulousness  of  faith,  no  lack  of 
fortitude,  no  disposition  to  repine.  No  token  that  love  could 
desire  of  affection  and  longing  is  wanting  in  the  language  of 
either,  and  yet  not  a  word  passes  from  one  to  the  other  to 
weaken  or  dispirit,  but  rather  to  sustain  and  encourage.  They 
abound  in  quotations  from  the  Scriptures,  especially  from  the 
prophetical  writings,  which  they  applied  to  themselves  and  their 
cause  in  a  manner  that  strikes  the  modern  reader  as  extravagant, 
and  superstitious,  if  not  hypocritical  and  almost  absurd ;  but 
which  was  entirely  in  keeping  with  the  custom  of  the  class  of 
religionists  to  which  they  belonged,  and  was  adopted  by  them 
selves  in  perfect  faith  and  guileless  sincerity.  They  addressed 
each  other,  respectively,  as  son  and  mother,  under  the  names  of 
Walter  and  Frances  Goldsmith.  We  recognize  in  him  and 
Whalley  the  distinctive  traits  of  the  Puritans,  —  an  impassioned 
piety,  "  a  lofty  air  of  manhood,  deep  thought  and  steady  enthusi- 

i  Mather  Papers,  p.  533. 


THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED  IN  NEW   ENGLAND.  345 

asm,  —  those  same  principles  of  stern  fidelity  and  self-command 
which  ennobled  the  better  days  of  the  .Roman  republic,  and  have 
made  the  men  of  every  after  era  appear  childish  and  frivolous  in 
comparison."  And  in  her  we  are  struck  with  those  qualities  which 
every  unprejudiced  student  of  history  admires  and  reverences  in 
the  characters  of  the  Republican  matrons  of  England.  Making 
a  slight  deduction  for  a  few  peculiarities  derived  from  their  reli 
gious  associations,- we  believe,  that  "  no  age  has  produced  a  more 
worthy  counterpart  to  the  Valerias  and  Portias  of  antiquity. 
In  their  high-minded  feeling  of  patriotism  and  public  honor,  com 
bined  with  the  most  dutiful  and  devoted  conjugal  attachment,  their 
kindness  and  hospitality,  their  domestic  virtue,  their  calm  dignity, 
endurance,  and  self  devotion,  there  is  something  that  makes  the 
Corinnes  and  Hdloises  appear  small  and  insignificant."  1 

If  we  may  believe  a  tradition  which  has  come  down  through 
the  family  of  Governor  Leverett,  and  which  there  is  no  good 
reason  for  discrediting,  an  opportunity  was  at  length  offered  to 
the  refugees,  during  their  residence  at  Hadley,  not  only  to  re 
pay  the  hospitality  of  their  protectors,  but  to  bring  into  action 
once  more,  though  but  for  a  moment,  their  military  skill  and 
prowess. 

In  the  summer  of  1676,  while  King  Philip's  war  was  raging, 
a  powerful  force  of  Indians  made  a  sudden  assault  upon  Had 
ley.  The  inhabitants  at  the  time  were  assembled  in  their 
meeting-house  observing  a  day  of  fasting  and  prayer ;  but,  in 
apprehension  of  an  attack,  they  had  taken  their  muskets  with 
them  to  the  house  of  God.  While  they  were  engaged  in  their 
devotions,  the  younger  of  the  solitary  captives,  who,  perhaps, 
taking  advantage  of  the  absence  of  observers  to  enjoy  a  brief 
interval  of  comparative  freedom,  may  have  been  seated  at  an 
open  window,  or  walking  near  the  house,  discovered  the  approach 
of  the  wily  foe,  and  hastened  to  give  the  alarm.  With  the  air 
of  one  accustomed  to  command,  he  hastily  drew  up  the  little 
band  of  villagers  in  the  most  approved  military  order,  put  him 
self  at  their  head,  and  by  his  own  ardor  and  energy  inspired 
them  with  such  confidence,  that,  rushing  upon  the  swarming  sav 
ages,  they  succeeded,  with  the  loss  of  only  two  or  three  men.  in 

1  Jeffrey,  Edinb.  Kev.,  October,  1808.  Review  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  Memoirs 
of  her  husband,  Colonel  Hutchinson. 


346  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

driving  them  back  into  the  wilderness.  But  when  the  confusion 
of  the  fight  was  over,  the4  mysterious  stranger  had  disappeared. 
It  is  hardly  a  matter  of  surprise  that,  in  that  superstitious  age, 
there  should  have  been  some  among  the  people  who,  in  utter 
bewilderment  as  to  the  person  of  their  deliverer  and  in  devout 
gratitude  for  their  strange  preservation,  should  have  regarded 
him  as  an  angel  sent  from  heaven  with  a  divine  commission  for 
their  rescue.1 

General  Whalley  died  at  Hadley,  probably  in  the  year  1676, 
and  was  buried  behind  the  front  cellar-wall  of  Mr.  Russell's 
house,  where  his  bones  have  since  been  found.  There  is  a  tra 
dition  that  General  Goffe,  after  the  decease  of  his  father-in-law, 
disappeared  from  Hadley,  going  "  westward  towards  Virginia," 
and  ended  his  career  in  total  obscurity.  There  are  also  some 
who  insist,  that  though  he  may  have  died  at  Hadley,  his  remains, 
together  with  those  of  Whalley,  were  removed  to  New  Haven,  and 
deposited  in  two  graves  by  the  side  of  that  of  their  fellow-exile 
Colonel  Dixwell.  To  us  it  appears  more  probable  that  he  ended 
his  days  in  the  quiet  and  hospitable  place  which  must  have  seemed 
to  him  more  like  home  than  any  other  spot  in  this  far  country, 
and  that  beneath  the  same  friendly  soil  on  which  he  had  found 
protection  in  life,  his  body  —  worn  out  with  age  and  care,  and 
laid  down  in  secrecy  and  decent  sorrow  by  the  hands  that  had  so 
long  ministered  to  its  comfort  —  has  found  even  unto  this  day  an 
undisturbed  resting-place.2 

1  There  are  several  versions  of  this  story.     They  differ  somewhat  in  regard  to 
details.     That  which  I  have  followed  seems  as  likely  to  be  in  accordance  with  the 
facts  as  either  of  the  others.     Holland's  Hist.  Western  Mass. ;  Huntington's  Cent. 
Address  ;  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Pev.  of  the  Peak,  &c. 

2  There  is  a  sentence  in  a  letter  from  Goffe  to  Increase  Mather,  dated  the  8th  of 
September,  1676,  in  the  Mather  Papers,  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  vol.  viii.  4th  series,  p.  158, 
which  might  lead  to  the  inference  that  shortly  before  that  time  the  writer  had  re 
moved  from  Hadley  to  a  new  place  of  concealment.     He  says,  "  /  was  greatly  behould- 
ing  to  Mr.  NoeJlfor  his  assistance  in  my  remove  to  this  town."     This  could  hardly  relate 
to  the  journey  of  the  Regicides  to  Hadley  so  long  before  as  1664.     Besides,  had 
Whalley  been  with  Goffe  at  the  time  of  the  removal  to  which  he  refers,  he  would  not 
have  said"wiy  removal,"  but  our.    Although  this  sentence  had  not  attracted  my 
particular  notice  at  the  time  of  editing  the  Mather  Papers,  or  when  this  lecture 
was  written,  it  has  since  impressed  me  with  a  belief  that  after  the  death  of  Whalley 
—  which  for  several  reasons  had  been  assigned  to  the  year  1676  — Gcffe  did  leave 
Hadley  for  some  other  town,  —  whether  New  Haven,  or  not,  I  know  of  no  means 
of  ascertaining. 


VC^LJFORN^,. 
THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  347 

In  1665,  the  year  after  their  arrival  at  Hadley,  Whalley  and 
Goffe  were  joined  by  that  old  companion  in  arms  and  in  the 
trial  of  the  King,  a  brief  sketch  of  whose  life  in  England  has 
already  been  given,  —  Colonel  John  Dixwell.  When  or  how  he 
had  come  to  this  country  from  Germany,  his  first  place  of  exile,  is 
not  known.  We  can  readily  imagine  with  what  strong  emotions 
the  exiles  met,  and  with  what  deep  and  untiring  interest  they 
talked  over,  during  the  three  or  four  years  they  remained  in  each 
other's  neighborhood,  the  great  events  in  which  they  had  partici 
pated.  At  the  end  of  that  period,  Dixwell  removed  to  New 
Haven.  As  he  had  never  been  traced  to  America  there  was  in  his 
case  less  reason  for  fearing  discovery.  Assuming  the  name  of 
Davids  and  carefully  concealing  his  true  character  from  the  pub 
lic,  who  regarded  him  as,  for  some  unknown  reason,  obnoxious  to 
the  English  government,  he  established  his  residence  in  a  retired 
part  of  the  town,  and  soon  secured  the  respect  of  the  inhabitants 
as  a  grave  and  quiet  gentleman.  He  married  twice ;  the  first 
wife  dying  a  few  weeks  after  their  nuptials.  By  the  second  he 
had  several  children  ;  from  one  of  whom  are  descended  the  highly 
respectable  Boston  family  which  bears  the  name  of  Dixwell.  He 
early  communicated  to  two  or  three  ministers  and  a  few  other 
friends  the  secret  of  his  history,  and  before  his  death  took  care 
to  demonstrate  his  true  name  and  character  by  his  last  will  and 
other  certified  documents.  He  died  in  March,  1689,  just  before 
the  welcome  tidings  of  the  downfall  of  the  Stuart  dynasty, 
which  would  have  caused  his  aged  heart  to  leap  for  joy,  had 
reached  America.  A  plain  gravestone,  with  the  simple  inscrip 
tion,  "  J.  D.  Esq,  Deceased  March  ye  19th,  in  ye  82d  year  of  his 
age  1688-9,"  marked  the  place  of  his  interment,  in  that  part  of 
the  public  square  of  New  Haven  which  is  flanked  by  the  halls 
of  Yale  College,  and  which  was  the  ancient  burial-place  of  the 
town.  In  1821,  when  the  monuments  in  this  ground  were  re 
moved  to  the  new  cemetery  in  the  north-west  part  of  the  city, 
this  grave  was  left  undisturbed.  In  1849,  his  descendants,  with 
a  laudable  feeling  of  veneration  for  their  distinguished  ancestor, 
by  permission  of  the  city  authorities,  caused  a  stately  and  grace 
ful  monument,  with  an  appropriate  inscription,  to  be  erected  to 
his  memory ;  which  is  invariably  pointed  out  by  the  citizens  of 
New  Haven  to  the  stranger  as  an  object  of  local  pride,  of  anti- 


348  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

quarian  curiosity,  and  of  universal  interest.1     It  is  worthy  of 
notice  that  in  one  of  the  last  papers  subscribed  by  his  own  hand 

1  The  monument  is  of  marble,  about  six  feet  high,  having  inscriptions  on  its  four 
sides.     That  on  the  east  side  is  as  follows  :  — 

JOHN  DIXWELL, 
a  zealous  patriot  —  a  sincere  Christian, 

an  honest  man, 

he  was  faithful  to  duty 

through  good  and  through  evil  report 

and  having  lost 
fortune,  position  and  home 
in  the  cause  of  his  country, 

and  of  human  rights, 
found  shelter  and  sympathy 

here, 
among  the  fathers  of  New  England. 

His  descendants 

have  erected  this  monument 

as  a  tribute  of  respect  to  his  memory 

and  as  a  grateful  record 
of  the  generous  protection 

extended  to  him, 
by  the  early  inhabitants 

of  New  Haven. 
Erected  A.D.  1849. 

The  inscription  on  the  north  side  is  as  follows :  — 

J.  D.  ESQ, 

DECEASED  — MARCH   YE 

19TH,  IN  YE  82D  YEAR  OB1 

HIS  AGE  1688-9. 

Copied  from  the  old  gravestone. 

Inscription  on  the  west  side  :  — 

Here  rest  the  remains  of 

JOHN  DIXWELL,  ESQ, 

of  the  Priory  of  Folkestone 

in  the  county  of  Kent,  England, 

of  a  family  long  prominent  in  Kent, 

and  Warwickshire,  and  himself  possessing 

large  estates  and  much  influence 

in  his  county,  he  espoused  the  popular  cause 

in  the  revolution  of  1640. 

Between  1640  and  1660 

he  was  colonel  in  the  army, 

an  active  member  of  four  parliaments. 

Thrice  in  the  council  of  state 
and  one  of  the  high  court  which  tried 
and  condemned  King  Charles  the  First. 
At  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy, 
he  was  compelled  to  leave  his  country ; 
and  after  a  brief  residence  in  Germany, 

Game  to  New  Haven, 

and  here  lived  in  seclusion, 

but  enjoying  the  esteem  and  friendship 

of  the  most  worthy  citizens, 

till  his  death  in  1-388-0. 

On  the  south  side  is  the  Dixwell  coat  of  arms,  with  the  motto, 

K88E  QUAM  VIDERI. 


THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  349 

and  placed  upon  record  in  the  probate  office,  occurs  this  emphatic 
statement  of  his  unabated  attachment  to  the  cause  for  which  he 
had  suffered,  and  his  unshaken  confidence  in  the  justice  of  his 
acts  in  its  behalf,  —  "  Being  confident  that  the  Lord  will  appear 
for  his  people  and  the  good  old  cause  for  which  I  suffer,  and  that 
there  will  be  those  in  power  again  who  will  relieve  the  injured 
and  oppressed." 

We  have  been  reviewing  the  history  of  eccentric  but  heroic 
men.  Though  we  cannot  justify  the  act  for  which  they  suffered, 
yet  who  of  us  is  disposed  to  charge  them  with  the  intention,  or 
even  the  consciousness,  of  crime  ?  Nay,  more,  who  of  us  can 
even  wonder  that,  entranced  as  they  were  by  the  beautiful  vision 
of  universal  liberty  under  the  sceptre  of  Christ,  ever  floating 
before  their  imagination,  and  seeming  to  beckon  to  them  from 
the  far  distant  future,  —  which  to  the  eye  of  their  strong  faith 
appeared  so  close  at  hand,  —  they  should  have  rushed  forward 
to  realize  it,  forgetful  of  the  lessons  of  history,  regardless  of  prece 
dent,  scornful  of  danger,  breaking  through  even  lawful  restraints, 
hewing  down  with  sword  and  axe  every  obstruction  that  blocked 
the  way,  —  thrones,  tyrants,  armies,  hierarchies,  constitutions,  — 
pressing  on  with  a  terrible  earnestness  and  a  frenzied  en 
thusiasm  ? 

If  there  were  any  gigantic  hypocrites,  who  had  joined  their 
ranks  to  make  them  their  tools,  to  turn  their  nobler  rage  and  in 
vincible  energy  to  the  service  of  their  towering  ambition,  the  men 
whose  lives  we  have  been  describing  were  themselves  too  sincere 
and  self-devoting  to  connive  at  such  deceit,  or  even  to  be  sus 
picious  of  such  motives.  They  never  for  one  moment  wavered 
in  their  loyalty  to  what  they  assuredly  believed  was  the  most 
sacred  and  glorious  cause  that  could  be  committed  by  Heaven 
to  human  hearts  and  hands.  To  the  day  of  their  death  they 
never  faltered  in  the  conviction  that  what  they  had  done  had 
received  the  august  sanction  of  their  God,  and  what  they  had 
suffered,  they  had  suffered  as  martyrs  to  conscience,  justice,  and 
liberty. 

It  would  be  presumptuous  and  ungrateful  in  us  who  are  enjoy 
ing  the  priceless  blessings  of  freedom  at  the  cost  of  others'  sacri 
fices,  —  of  the  heroism,  the  sufferings,  the  virtues,  yes,  and  the 
faults  of  our  ancestors,  —  who  are  too  luxuriously  revelling  in 


350  THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

the  harvest  which  they  sowed  in  agony  and  watered  with  their 
blood,  —  to  pass  a  cool  and  censorious  judgment  upon  men  like 
these.  They  should  be  tried  only  by  a  tribunal  of  their  peers. 
Happy  will  it  be  for  us  if  the  worst  fault  that  can  be  charged 
against  us  by  the  pen  of  man,  or  by  the  Recording  Angel,  shall 
be  an  overmastering  hatred  of  oppression,  and  a  too  enthusiastic 
and  impatient  endeavor  to  hasten  the  fulfilment,  before  His  own 
appointed  time,  of  the  sure  and  glorious  promises  of  God.1 

Our  subject  involves  the  interesting  question  of  the  attitude 
of  New  England  towards  the  parent  country  during  the  eventful 
period  to  which  it  relates. 

It  is  certain  that  the  leading  men  in  the  colonies  were  not  only 
deeply  interested  in  the  political  movements  on  the  opposite 
shore,  but  that  they  had  no  inconsiderable  influence  upon  the 
party  with  which  they  were  in  sympathy.  Besides  the  fact  of 
their  intimate  personal  relations  and  common  interests,  there  is 
sufficient  evidence  that  they  were  in  frequent  correspondence 
with  the  Republicans  in  England,  and  that  their  assistance  with 

1  There  are  traditionary  anecdotes  concerning  Whalley  and  Goffe  to  which  I  have 
paid  no  attention,  for  most  of  them  bear  internal  evidence  of  untruth ;  and  with  re 
gard  to  the  rest  there  is  not  sufficient  ground  to  receive  them  into  veritable  history. 
There  are  also  traditions  that  two  or  three  other  Regicide  Judges  were  secreted  in 
New  England,  in  different  localities,  but  they  are  undoubtedly  erroneous.  It  is  pos 
sible  that  there  were  several  refugees  from  England,  for  other  offences  than  con 
nection  with  the  King's  death,  who  found  shelter  in  our  forests.  There  is  a  plausible 
account  of  a  person  who  may  have  been  an  exile  for  some  political  cause,  given  in  a 
speech  by  Rev.  Frederic  A.  Whitney,  at  a  dinner  on  the  occasion  of  the  celebration, 
in  1840,  of  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  incorporation  of  the  town  of 
Quincy,  Mass.  Mr.  Whitney  says,  — 

"  Some  years  since  I  gathered  from  the  lips  of  an  aged  citi/en  of  Quincy,  who  was 
remarkable  for  his  retentive  memory  and  exceeding  accuracy  in  all  matters  of  fact, 
this  tradition.  His  childhood  he  told  me  had  been  with  those  who  had  conversed 
with  this  lonely  exile.  Within  his  own  memory  there  had  stood  on  a  hillock  the 
humble  abode  of  the  old  refugee.  Here,  as  said  tradition,  under  the  assumed  name 
of  Revel,  he  lived  and  died ;  and  his  funeral  was  honored  by  the  attendance  of  his 
Excellency  the  Provincial  Governor,  and  of  distinguished  men  from  the  neighboring 
metropolis." 

Those  who  are  curious  in  regard  to  such  traditions  will  find  many  of  them  referred 
to  in  "  Stiles's  History  of  the  Judges,"  together  with  much  authentic  information. 
Though  over  enthusiastic  in  his  admiration  of  the  Regicides,  and  extravagant  in  his 
attempts  to  justify  and  glorify  their  treatment  of  the  King,  and  withal,  somewhat 
credulous,  the  work  of  President  Stiles  shows  ability,  learning,  and  minute  research, 
and  is  the  principal  source  to  which  all  who  treat  our  subject  are  indebted  for  their 
material. 


THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  351 

the  pen,  if  not  with  the  sword,  was  much  relied  upon  and 
solicited.  The  Independents  —  who  at  the  breaking  out  of  the 
civil  war  were  a  small  though  vigorous  minority  struggling  for 
existence,  but  who  at  its  close  held  the  destiny  of  the  kingdom 
in  their  hands  —  early  looked  to  New  England  not  only  for  the 
ablest  advocacy  of  their  principles,  but  for  the  strong  encourage 
ment  which  the  successful  practical  exemplification  of  them 
afforded. 

In  1642,  a  letter  signed  by  about  forty  persons,  Peers,  Com 
moners,  and  ministers, —  Cromwell  among  the  number,  —  was 
addressed  to  Cotton  of  Boston,  Hooker  of  Hartford,  and  Daven 
port  of  New  Haven,  urging  them  to  come  over  with  all  possible 
speed  to  give  their  help  "  for  settling  the  affairs  of  the  Church." 
Although  neither  of  these  ministers  was  persuaded  to  respond 
to  the  call  in  person,  yet  the  writings  of  Cotton  and  other  of  the 
New-England  clergy  were  published  and  circulated  in  England, 
and  contributed  a  powerful  element  in  support  of  the  religious 
politics  of  their  friends. 

A  large  number  of  the  most  distinguished  men  in  the  colonies, 
—  among  them  John  Leverett,  Edward  Winslow,  and  Edward 
Hopkins,  afterwards  governors,  respectively,  of  Massachusetts, 
Plymouth,  and  Connecticut, —  and  many  ministers,  subsequently 
went  over  to  England  to  take  a  civil  or  military  part  in  the  ranks 
of  the  revolutionary  party.1  The  sentiments  of  one,  at  least,  of 
the  most  eminent  and  useful  of  the  New-England  clergymen, 
whose  praise  is  on  all  our  lips,  the  Apostle  Eliot,  were  in  entire 
accordance  with  those  by  which  the  Regicides  professed  to  have 
been  actuated.  Goffe  himself  might  have  been  the  author  of  such 
sentences  as  the  following,  contained  in  an  Epistle  addressed 
"  To  the  Chosen,  Holy  and  Faithful,  who  manage  the  Wars  of 
the  Lord  against  Antichrist  in  Great  Britain:"  — 

"  The  prayers,  the  expectation  and  faith  of  the  saints  in  the  Prophecies 
and  Promises  of  Holy  Scripture  are  daily  sounding  in  the  ears  of  the 
Lord  for  the  downfall  of  Antichrist  and  with  him  all  humane  Powers, 
Politics,  Dominions  and  Governments ;  and  in  the  room  thereof  we  wait 
for  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  .  .  .  Much  is  spoken 
of  the  rightful  Heir  of  the  Crown  of  England,  and  the  injustice  of  casting 
out  the  right  Heir :  but  Christ  is  the  only  right  Heir  of  the  Crown  of 

1  Dr.  Palfrey's  Hist,  of  New  England. 


352  THE  REGICIDES  SHELTERED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

England,  and  of  all  other  nations  also ;  and  he  is  now  come  to  take  pos 
session  of  his  Kingdom,  making  England  first  in  that  blessed  work  of  set 
ting  up  the  Kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus :  and  in  order  thereunto  he  hath 
cast  down  not  only  the  miry  Religion  and  Government  of  Antichrist,  but 
also  the  form  of  Civil  Government  which  did  stick  fast  to  it." 

This  treatise  was,  by  the  author's  permission,  published  in 
England  in  1659,  though  written  some  six  or  seven  years  before, 
under  the  title  of  the  "  Christian  Commonwealth."  After  the 
restoration  of  the  monarchy,  the  magistrates  of  the  colony,  hear 
ing  that  the  book  had  excited  much  notice  and  given  great 
offence,  found  it  "  full  of  seditious  principles  and  notions  in 
regard  to  all  established  Governments  in  the  Christian  world, 
and  specially  against  the  Government  established  in  their  native 
country;"  but  deferred  proceedings  against  it  in  order  that  the 
author  might  have  opportunity  in  the  mean  time  to  make  a 
public  recantation.  This  he  did,  "  sincerely."  The  magistrates 
accepted  his  acknowledgment,  and  ordered  the  book  to  be  sup 
pressed.1 

If  the  testimony  of  a  witness  in  the  trial  of  Hugh  Peters  for 
complicity  in  the  murder  of  the  King  is  to  be  credited,  the 
Agency  on  which  he  was  sent  to  England  by  Massachusetts, 
together  with  Thomas  Welde  of  Roxbury,  and  William  Hibbens 

1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  3d  Series,  rol.  ix.,  where  a  reprint  of  the  Christian  Common 
wealth  may  be  seen ;  Palfrey's  Hist,  of  New  England ;  Chalmers's  State  Papers,  &c. 

"  Mr.  Eliot's  acknowledgment  word  for  word. 

"Boston,  this  24  of  ye  3d  mo.  1661. 

"  Vnderstanding  by  an  act  of  the  honored  Council,  that  there  is  offence  taken  at 
a  booke,  published  in  England  by  others,  the  copie  whereof  was  sent  ouer  by  myself 
about  nine  or  tenn  yeares  since,  and  that  the  further  consideration  thereof  is  com 
mended  to  this  honnored  Generall  Court  now  sitting  at  Boston,  Upon  pervsall  thereof 
I  doe  judge  myself  to  haue  offended  &  in  way  satisfaction,  not  only  to  the  Authority 
of  this  Jurisdiction,  but  also  vnto  any  others,  that  shall  take  notice  thereof,  I  doe 
hereby  acknowledge  to  this  honored  Court. 

"  Such  expressions  as  doe  too  manifestly  scandalize  the  Gouernment  of  England 
by  King,  Lorc'.s  and  Commons,  as  Antichristian,  and  justify  the  late  Innovators,  I 
doe  sincerely  beare  testimony  against,  and  acknowledge  it  to  be  not  only  a  lawfull 
but  an  eminent  forme  of  Gouernment. 

"  2.  All  formes  of  Ciuil  Gouernment  deduced  from  Scripture  either  expressly  or 
by  just  consequence,  I  acknowledge  to  be  of  God  &  to  be  subjected  vnto  for  Con 
science  sake. 

"  And  Whatsoeuer  is  in  the  whole  Epistle  or  booke  inconsisting  herewith  I  doe 
at  once  for  all  cordially  disoune.  JOHN  ELIOT." 


THE  REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  353 

of  Boston,  in  1641,  was  not  without  reference  to  the  promotion 
of  "  the  interests  of  reformation  by  stirring  up  the  war."  There 
are  circumstances  also  connected  with  that  mission,  besides  the 
well-known  conduct  of  Peters,  which  go  to  confirm  such  a  sus 
picion.  Dr.  Palfrey  intimates  that  "  it  is  not  owing  to  accident 
that  the  instructions  to  the  Agents  have  not  been  preserved." 
All  we  know  concerning  those  instructions  is  from  the  cautious 
language  of  Winthrop,  who  says,  amongst  other  things,  that  they 
were  sent  to  "  congratulate  the  happy  success  there,"  of  the  Par 
liament  in  its  early  struggles  with  the  King.  The  manuscript 
papers  of  Welde,  of  which  a  copy  is  in  the  Library  of  Harvard 
College,  would  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  ostensible  objects 
of  the  Agents,  especially  of  Hugh  Peters,  were  not  their  only, 
if  they  were  their  principal,  purpose.1 

The  tyranny  of  Charles  L,  and  the  hierarchy  which  was 
allied  with  it,  were  as  hateful  to  the  majority  of  the  colonists 
here  as  to  the  friends  of  liberty  at  home.  They  heard  with  un 
disguised  gratification  of  the  first  vigorous  and  promising  efforts 
of  the  Parliament  in  their  armed  resistance  to  the  encroachments 
of  the  Throne.  To  prevent  the  organization  of  a  party  in  the 
royal  interest,  they  passed  an  order  that  "  what  person  soever 
shall  by  word,  writing,  or  action,  endeavor  to  disturb  our  peace, 
directly  or  indirectly,  by  drawing  a  party  under  pretence  that  he 
is  for  the  King  of  England  against  the  Parliament,  shall  be  ac 
counted  as  an  offender  of  a  high  nature  against  this  Common 
wealth,  and  to  be  proceeded  with  either  capitally  or  otherwise, 
according  to  the  quality  or  degree  of  their  offence." 

But  notwithstanding  their  sympathies  were  so  strongly  with 
the  Commons,  they  were  more  than  all  jealous  of  their  own 
political  rights,  and  scrupulously  careful  not  to  compromise  their 
independence  by  any  appearance  of  subserviency  to  the  Parlia 
ment,  any  more  than  to  the  King.  When  Charles  I.  had  been 
brought  to  the  block,  no  New-England  colony  expressed  its 
formal  approval  of  the  act ;  nor  have  we  any  ground  for  believing 
that  it  met  with  general  favor.  It  is  probable  that  while  some 
of  the  more  passionate  republicans  were  gratified,  and  justified 
the  extreme  measure,  the  more  wise  and  considerate  spirits  re 
garded  it  with  disapprobation  and  apprehension.  When  a  Puritan 

l  See  note  on  p.  684,  yol.  i.,  of  Dr.  Palfrey's  Hist,  of  N.  E. 
23 


354  THE   REGICIDES   SHELTERED   IN  NEW   ENGLAND. 

Parliament  came  into  power,  Massachusetts  "  carefully  abstained 
from  any  such  solicitation  for  its  favor  as  could  be  construed  into 
an  admission  of  its  authority."  When  England  made  Cromwell 
virtually  a  monarch,  she  preserved  a  steady  silence.  When  his 
son  Richard  was  elevated  to  the  Protectorate,  no  public  notice 
was  taken  of  the  event,  although  the  Council  of  State  sent  an 
order  for  his  proclamation.  And  when  Charles  II.  was  restored 
to  the  throne,  although  intelligence  of  the  fact  reached  Boston  in 
July,  1660,  no  proclamation  was  made  till  August  of  the  follow 
ing  year.  It  was  the  settled  policy  of  our  Fathers  to  act  with  a 
cautious  neutrality,  as  it  was  from  the  first  their  sacred  purpose 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  an  independent  State,  as  far  and  as  fast 
as  it  could  be  done  consistently  with  a  prudent  regard  to  their 
temporary  safety  and  interest,  and  a  formal  respect  to  their 
colonial  obligations. 

In  giving  a  safe  asylum  to  the  Judges  who  had  condemned 
and  executed  their  lawful,  but  lawless  King,  they  acted  from  the 
promptings  of  a  compassionate  and  magnanimous  spirit,  which 
though  it  may  have  led  them  to  violate  the  letter  of  their  political 
bond,  impelled  them  to  the  performance  of  that  higher  duty  to 
humanity  to  which  neither  their  hearts  nor  their  consciences 
would  suffer  them  to  be  faithless ;  and  for  their  generous  and 
resolute  fidelity  to  which  we  are  constrained  to  give  them  our 
honor  and  our  love. 


THE    FIRST    CHARTER 


AND 


THE    EARLY    KELIGIOUS    LEGISLATION 


OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 


BY    JOEL     PARKER. 


THE    FIRST    CHARTER 


AND 


THE    EAELY    EELIGIOUS    LEGISLATION 

OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 


TT  has  been  regarded  as  a  subject  of  complacency,  that  we 
-^  know  our  origin,  and  can  trace  our  history ;  that  while  other 
communities  seek  their  early  history  in  the  mists  of  conjecture, 
or  the  myths  of  tradition,  we  can  trace  our  own,  in  that  docu 
mentary  evidence  which  gives  the  greatest  degree  of  certainty. 

To  a  considerable  extent,  this  is  true.  And  yet  there  are  par 
ticulars,  essential  to  a  right  understanding  of  the  principles  upon 
which  the  original  settlement  of  Massachusetts  was  made,  re 
specting  which  there  has  been,  and  now  is,  such  a  diversity  and 
discrepancy  of  opinion,  after  all  the  discussions  of  two  hundred 
years,  and  after  the  labors  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So 
ciety,  for  three  quarters  of  a  century,  in  collecting  documents 
in  regard  to  the  subject,  that  the  Ends  and  Aims  of  the  first 
settlers  of  Massachusetts  furnish  the  leading  topic  of  the  present 
course  of  lectures,  in  the  hope  that  the  errors  which  have  pre 
vailed  on  that  subject  may  be  corrected,  and  the  purposes  and 
objects  of  the  founders  of  the  Commonwealth  may  be  more 
clearly  and  generally  understood. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  there  should  be  misconception  upon 
this  subject,  when  it  is  considered  that  the  materials  of  the  his 
tory  of  that  time  are  widely  dispersed,  and  often  contradictory ; 
malice  manufacturing  misrepresentations,  prejudice  engender 
ing  error,  and  mistake  and  carelessness  causing  fact  and  fiction 
to  be  so  intermingled,  that  it  is  not  seldom  that  the  discovery  of 
truth  is  a  laborious  task. 

How  many  persons  there  are  in  the  community,  who,  at  this 
day,  suppose  that  the  celebrated  so-called  "  Blue  Laws  of  Con- 


358       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

necticut"  are  the  veritable  legislation  of  the  Puritan  Colony  there ! 
The  fact  that  one  of  them  purports  to  provide,  that  "  No  one 
shall  run  on  the  Sabbath  day,  or  walk  in  his  garden  or  elsewhere, 
except  reverently  to  and  from  meeting ; "  and  another  that  "  No 
woman  shall  kiss  her  child  on  the  Sabbath,  or  on  a  fasting  day," 
—  might  lead  to  a  doubt ; l  but  all  this  is  deemed  consistent  with 
the  spirit  of  the  time,  enforcing  a  strict  observance  of  that  holy 
day. 

How  few  persons  know  that  many  of  these  "  Blue  Laws  "  are 
but  the  jokes  of  the  wits  and  humorists  of  a  subsequent  age,  for 
the  purpose  of  sport  and  ridicule,  having  no  enduring  existence 
until  Dr.  Samuel  Peters  collecting,  and  probably  adding  to  them, 
inserted,  in  what  purported  to  be  "  A  General  History  of  Con 
necticut,"  a  sketch,  as  he  said,  of  laws  made  by  the  independent 
Dominion  of  New  Haven,  denominated  "  Blue  Laws"  by  the 
neighboring  colonies,  and  never  suffered  to  be  printed!2  The 
whole  work  has  been  shown  to  be  so  untruthful  that  the  appear 
ance  of  these  so-called  "  Blue  Laws  "  there,  is  of  itself  primd 
facie  evidence  that  they  are  fictitious.3 

If  we  consider  what  a  vast  mass  of  contradictory  material  has 
accumulated  within  the  last  decade,  to  perplex  the  future  histo 
rian  of  the  late  war,  we  shall  cease  to  wonder  that  much  may  be 
done,  even  at  the  present  day,  by  a  diligent  student  of  history, 
to  elucidate  the  ends  and  aims  of  the  Puritan  Fathers  of 
1630. 

It  is  because  of  the  dispersion  of  material,  and  of  the  contra 
dictory  opinions  which  have  been  entertained  respecting  the 
rights,  objects,  and  purposes  of  the  founders  of  the  Common 
wealth,  that  I  have  deemed  it  not  only  a  duty,  but  a  pleasure,  to 
answer  the  call  made  upon  me  to  add  a  small  contribution,  such 
as  it  may  be,  to  the  present  attempt  of  the  Historical  Society  to 
illustrate  the  early  history  of  Massachusetts. 

The  subject  assigned  to  me  is  "  the  Religious  Legislation  of 
Massachusetts,"  —  involving,  of  course,  the  inquiry  how  far  any 

1  Another  may  furnish  Congress  with  a  model  of  brevity,  in  making  up  an  "om 
nibus  bill,"  near  the  close  of  a  session  :  "  No  one  shall  read  Common  Prayer,  keep 
Christmas  or  Saints  days,  make  minced  pies,  dance,  play  cards,  or  play  on  any  in 
strument  of  music,  except  the  drum,  trumpet,  and  jews-harp." 

2  See  Gen.  Hist.  Conn.  63. 

3  See  Prof.  Kingsley's  Hist.  Discourse  at  New  Haven,  1838.    pp.  35,  56,  83,  104. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       359 

such  legislation  was  lawful  under  the  original  charter,  —  and 
this,  in  turn,  depending  upon  the  question,  to  what  extent  the 
grantees  had  any  right  of  legislation,  properly  so  called,  by  the 
provisions  of  that  instrument. 

Upon  this  question  the  opinions  have  been  much  at  variance, 
according  as  the  charter  has  been  regarded  as  instituting  a  cor 
poration  for  trading  purposes,  or  as  the  constitution  and  founda 
tion  of  a  government.  That  the  grantees  who  settled  here 
regarded  it  as  the  latter,  and  acted  upon  that  construction,  is 
apparent  from  their  action  at  the  outset,  and  throughout.  But 
those  opposed  to  them,  contended  at  the  time,  that  the  former 
was  its  true  intent  and  meaning,  and  historians  have  perpetuated 
that  opinion.  Minot,  in  his  History  of  Massachusetts,  says,  — 

"This  charter,  from  the  omissions  of  several  powers  necessary 
to  the  future  situation  of  the  Colony,  shows  us  how  inadequate  the  ideas 
of  the  parties  were  to  the  important  consequences  which  were  about 
to  follow  from  such  an  act.  The  Governor,  with  the  assistants  and 
freemen  of  the  company,  it  is  true,  were  empowered  to  make  all  laws,  not 
repugnant  to  those  of  England ;  but  the  power  of  imposing  fines,  mulcts, 
imprisonment,  or  other  lawful  correction,  is  expressly  given  according  to 
the  course  of  other  corporations  in  the  realm ;  and  the  general  circum 
stances  of  the  settlement,  and  the  practice  of  the  times,  can  leave  us  no 
doubt  that  this  body-politic  was  viewed  rather  as  a  trading  company  resid 
ing  within  the  kingdom,  than,  what  it  very  soon  became,  a  foreign  govern 
ment  exercising  all  the  essentials  of  sovereignty  over  its  subjects."  * 

He  proceeds  to  speak  of  divers  laws  as  having  been  made  by 
the  grantees,  of  their  own  motion  and  without  any  authority 
under  the  charter,  and,  after  referring  to  the  force  of  habits  and 
prejudices,  adds, — 

"  But  such  was  the  force  of  these  habits  and  prejudices,  and  so  prone 
are  mankind  to  place  unlimited  confidence  in  their  government,  when  un 
provoked  by  the  usurpation  and  abuse  of  power,  that  the  people  of  Mas 
sachusetts  may  be  said  to  have  submitted  to  a  system  of  laws,  by  which  the 
freedom  of  action  was  abridged,  and  to  have  voluntarily  yoked  themselves 
to  an  ecclesiastical  authority,  by  which  the  rights  of  conscience  lost,  for  a 
time,  the  very  principles  that  their  emigration  had  avowed." 

Bancroft,  who  aspires  to  be  the  historian  of  the  United 
States,  writes,  — 

1  See  Minot,  p.  19. 


360        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

"  The  charter,  which  bears  the  signature  of  Charles  I.,1  and  which  was 
cherished  for  more  than  half  a  century  as  the  most  precious  boon,  estab 
lished  a  corporation,  like  other  corporations  within  the  realm.  The  asso 
ciates  were  constituted  a  body-politic  by  the  name  of  the  Governor  and 
Company  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  in  New  England.  The  administra 
tion  of  its  affairs  was  intrusted  to  a  governor,  deputy,  and  eighteen  assist 
ants,  who  were  to  be  annually  elected  by  the  stockholders  or  members  of 
the  corporation.  Four  times  a  year,  or  oftener  if  desired,  a  general 
assembly  of  the  freemen  was  to  be  held ;  and  to  these  assemblies,  which 
were  invested  with  the  necessary  powers  of  legislation,  inquest,  and  super 
intendence,  the  most  important  affairs  were  referred.  No  provision  re 
quired  the  assent  of  the  King  to  render  the  acts  of  the  body  valid ;  in  his 
eye  it  was  but  a  trading  corporation,  not  a  civil  government ;  its  doings 
were  esteemed  as  indifferent  as  those  of  any  guild  or  company  in  Eng 
land;  and  if  powers  of  jurisdiction  in  America  were  conceded,  it  was  only 
from  the  nature  of  the  business  in  which  the  stockholders  were  to  en 
gage."  —  "  The  charter  designedly  granted  great  facilities  for  colonization. 
It  allowed  the  company  to  transport  to  its  American  territory  any  persons, 
whether  English  or  foreigners,  who  would  go  willingly,  would  become 
lieges  of  the  English  king,  and  were  not  restrained  *  by  especial  name.'  It 
empowered,  but  it  did  not  require  the  Governor  to  administer  the  oaths 
of  supremacy  and  allegiance  ;  yet  the  charter,  according  to  the  strict  rules 
of  legal  interpretation,  was  far  from  conceding  to  the  patentees  the  privi 
lege  of  freedom  of  worship.  Not  a  single  line  alludes  to  such  a  purpose ; 
nor  can  it  be  implied  by  a  reasonable  construction  from  any  clause." 

He  says  further,  —  "The  political  condition  of  the  colonists  was  not 
deemed  by  King  Charles  a  subject  worthy  of  his  consideration.  Full 
legislative  and  executive  authority  was  conferred  not  on  the  emigrants, 
but  on  the  company,  of  which  the  emigrants  could  not  be  active  members, 
so  long  as  the  charter  of  the  corporation  remained  in  England.  The 
associates  in  London  were  to  establish  ordinances,  to  settle  forms  of  gov 
ernment,  to  name  all  necessary  officers,  to  prescribe  their  duties,  and  to 
establish  a  criminal  code.  Massachusetts  was  not  erected  into  a  province, 
to  be  governed  by  laws  of  its  own  enactment ;  it  was  reserved  for  the 
corporation  to  decide  what  degree  of  civil  rights  its  colonists  should 
enjoy." 

Again, — "  The  charter  on  which  the  freemen  of  Massachusetts  succeeded 
in  erecting  a  system  of  independent  representative  liberty,  did  not  secure 

1  This,  by  the  way,  is  a  mistake  in  the  outset.  Charles  Caesar,  the  Master  in 
Chancery,  before  whom  Governor  Cradock  took  the  oath  of  office,  and  whose  name 
is  appended  to  a  certificate  of  that  fact,  at  the  bottom  of  the  charter,  was  not 
Charles  I. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       361 

to  them  a  single  privilege  of  self-government ;  but  left  them,  as  the  Vir 
ginians  had  been  left,  without  one  valuable  franchise,  at  the  mercy  of  a 
corporation  within  the  realm.  This  was  so  evident,  that  some  of  those 
who  had  already  emigrated,  clamored  that  they  were  become  slaves.1 

"  It  was  equally  the  right  of  the  corporation  to  establish  the  terms  on 
which  new  members  should  be  admitted  to  its  freedom.  Its  numbers  could 
be  enlarged  or  changed  only  by  its  own  consent. 

"  It  was  perhaps  implied,  though  it  was  not  expressly  required,  that 
the  affairs  of  the  company  should  be  administered  in  England ;  yet  the 
place  for  holding  the  courts  was  not  specially  appointed.  What  if  the 
corporation  should  vote  the  emigrants  to  be  freemen,  and  call  a  meeting 
beyond  the  Atlantic  ?  What  if  the  Governor,  deputy,  assistants,  and  free 
men  should  themselves  emigrate,  and  thus  break  down  the  distinction 
between  the  colony  and  the  corporation  ? 2  The  history  of  Massachusetts 
is  the  counterpart  to  that  of  Virginia :  the  latter  obtained  its  greatest  lib 
erty  by  the  abrogation  of  the  charter  of  its  company ;  the  former  by  a 
transfer  of  its  charter,  and  a  daring  construction  of  its  powers  by  the  suc 
cessors  of  the  original  patentees."  8 

Now  I  may  remark  that  it  is  quite  possible  Charles  I.  was 
not  very  careful  to  scrutinize  the  effect  of  the  powers  which  he 
assumed  to  confer  by  the  charter. 

The  lands  granted  (with  a  vast  extent  of  territory  besides, 
claimed  by  the  Crown)  were,  notwithstanding  the  glowing  ac 
counts  of  some  navigators  respecting  the  fisheries,  deemed  of 
such  small  importance  that  they  came  very  near  falling  entirely 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  other  governments,  from  the  mere  neg 
lect  of  the  English  Government  to  take  possession ;  and  so  far 
as  any  direct  independent  action  of  the  Crown  was  concerned, 
such  would  have  been  their  fate.  The  patent  to  the  Great 
Council  of  Plymouth,  procured  by  individuals,  probably  saved 
them  as  a  British  possession. 

And  along  with  this  supposition  of  a  Jack  of  value  in  the  ter 
ritory,  King  Charles  could  not  have  been  ignorant  of  the  general 
character,  political  and  religious,  of  the  proposed  emigrants,  and 
might  well  have  considered  that  it  was  quite  immaterial  what 

1  These  were  the  "old  planters,"  —  squatters,  before  the  charter  was  granted 

2  If  they  might  do  so,  it  would  appear  that  the  charter  did  secure  to  them  some 
privileges  of  self-government,  and  that  they  were  not  necessarily  at  the  mercy  of  a 
corporation  within  the  realm. 

3  See  Bancroft,  vol.  i.  pp.  342-345. 


362        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

powers  were  given  to  the  grantees,  to  be  exercised  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  if  thereby  England  would  be  rid  of  a  class 
of  people  imbued  with  notions  of  republican  freedom,  and  likely 
to  be  very  troublesome  as  nonconformists,  if  they  remained 
there. 

If  he  could  have  cleared  his  kingdom  of  many  more  of  a  simi 
lar  character,  by  a  like  process,  he  would  have  saved  his  crown 
and  his  life. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  that  the  grantees  were  not 
fully  aware  of  the  extent  of  the  powers  conferred  by  the  charter 
as  they  subsequently  construed  its  provisions ;  but  this  admits 
of  grave  doubt.  We  may  safely  infer  that  the  original  draft  was 
made  by  counsel  employed  by  the  applicants,  and  submitted  to 
the  crown  lawyers  for  examination.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  the  crown  officers  would  undertake  the  duty  of  preparing  a 
document  which  had  so  much  of  a  private  character  attached  to 
it ;  and  as  it  bears  upon  its  face  evidence  that  it  was  very  care 
fully  drawn  up,  apparently,  so  as  to  confer  power  without  giving 
offence,  we  can  hardly  make  a  presumption  that  none  of  the 
grantees  understood  its  full  scope  and  effect.  It  is  quite  clear, 
however,  that  they  did  not  anticipate  such  an  influx  of  emigra 
tion  that  the  very  success  of  their  experiment,  so  far  as  popula 
tion  was  concerned,  should  have  been  its  overthrow  in  some  of 
its  most  important  religious  aspects. 

But  the  question  is  not  so  much  what  the  King,  or  other 
persons,  may  have  supposed  respecting  the  subject,  as  what 
provisions  were  contained  in  the  charter. 

Whatever  rights  the  charter  purported  to  grant,  vested  lawfully 
in  the  grantees. 

The  title  to  unoccupied  lands  belonging  to  Great  Britain, 
whether  acquired  by  conquest  or  discovery,  was  vested  in  the 
Crown.  The  right  to  grant  corporate  franchises  was  one  of  the 
prerogatives  of  the  King.  And  the  right  to  institute  and  to 
provide  for  the  institution  of  colonial  governments,  whether  by 
charter,  proprietary  grant,  or  commission,  was  likewise  one  of 
the  prerogatives.  Parliament  had  then  nothing  to  do  with  the 
organization  or  government  of  colonies. 

The  confirmation,  therefore,  in  the  charter,  of  the  grant  of  the 
lands  from  the  Council  of  Plymouth  (which  derived  title  from 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.       363 

the  grant  of  James  I.,  and  which  could  grant  the  lands,  but  could 
not  grant  nor  assign  powers  of  government),  with  a  new  grant, 
in  form,  of  the  same  lands,  gave  to  the  grantees  a  title  in  socage ; 
substantially  a  fee-simple,  except  that  there  was  to  be  a  rendition 
of  one-fifth  of  the  gold  and  silver  ores.  The  grant  of  corporate 
powers,  in  the  usual  form  of  grants  to  private  corporations,  con 
ferred  upon  them  all  the  ordinary  rights  of  a  private  corporation, 
under  which  they  could  dispose  of  their  lands,  and  transact  all 
business  in  which  the  company  had  a  private  interest.  And  the 
grant  of  any  powers  of  colonial  government,  embraced  in  the 
charter,  was  valid  and  effective  to  the  extent  of  the  powers 
which  were  granted,  whatever  those  powers  might  be  ;  the  whole, 
as  against  the  corporation,  being  subject  to  forfeiture  for  suffi 
cient  cause. 

The  grant  and  confirmation  of  the  lands,  and  the  grant  of 
mere  corporate  powers  for  private  purposes,  were  private  rights, 
which  vested  in  the  grantees;  and  which  the  King  could  not 
divest,  except  upon  some  forfeiture  regularly  enforced.  Upon 
such  forfeiture,  the  corporation  would  be  dissolved,  and  all  of 
the  lands  belonging  to  it  would  revert,  in  the  nature  of  an 
escheat.  But  this  would  not  affect  valid  grants  previously 
made  by  it. 

The  grant  of  power  to  institute  a  colonial  government,  being 
a  grant  not  for  private  but  for  public  purposes,  may  have  a 
different  consideration.  Whether  by  reason  of  its  connection 
with  the  grant  of  the  lands  and  of  ordinary  corporate  powers,  it 
partook  so  far  of  the  nature  of  a  private  right,  that  it  could  not 
be  altered,  modified,  or  revoked,  except  on  forfeiture,  enforced  by 
process;  or  whether  this  part  of  the  grant  had  such  a  public 
character,  that  the  powers  of  government  were  held  subject  to 
alteration  and  amendment;  —  is  hardly  open  to  discussion.  At 
the  present  day  it  is  held,  that  municipal  corporations,  being  for 
public  uses  and  purposes,  have  no  vested  private  rights  in  the 
powers  and  privileges  granted  to  them,  but  that  they  may  be 
changed  at  the  pleasure  of  the  government.  That  principle 
seems  to  be  equally  applicable  to  a  grant  of  colonial  powers  of 
government ;  and  the  better  opinion  would  seem  to  be,  that  it  was 
within  the  legitimate  prerogative  of  the  King,  at  that  day,  to 
modify,  and  even  to  revoke,  the  powers  of  that  character  which 


364       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

had  been  granted  by  the  Crown,  substituting  others  appropriate 
for  the  purpose.1 

If  the  King  had  assumed  to  revoke  the  powers  of  government 
granted  by  the  charter,  without  substitution,  or  if  he  had  im 
posed  any  other  form  of  government,  by  which  the  essential 
features  of  that  which  was  constituted  under  the  charter  would 
have  been  abrogated,  it  might  have  been  an  arbitrary  exercise  of 
power,  justifying  any  revolutionary  resistance  which  the  Colony 
could  have  made.  But  the  Crown,  under  the  then  existing  laws 
of  England,  must  have  possessed  legally  such  power  over  the 
Colony  as  the  legislature  may  exercise  over  municipal  corporations 
at  the  present  day.  The  charter,  so  far  as  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment  were  concerned,  could  not  be  treated  as  a  private  contract. 

The  charter  was  originally  the  only  authority  for  the  govern 
ment  of  the  territory  embraced  in  it.  The  Council  at  Plymouth, 
in  the  county  of  Devon,  never  attempted  to  exercise  powers  of 
government  over  the  Colony  of  Massachusetts ;  and  there  was 
no  compact  or  agreement  to  form  a  government.  The  grantees 
professed,  in  all  they  did,  to  act  under  the  charter,  and,  as  they 
contended,  according  to  the  charter. 

We  are  to  look  to  the  terms  of  the  charter,  therefore,  and  to  a 
sound  construction  of  its  provisions,  to  ascertain  what  rights  of 
legislation,  religious  or  otherwise,  were  possessed  by  the  gran 
tees. 

The  charter  bears  date  March  4,  1628  [29]. 

From  a  careful  examination  of  it,  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
maintaining  five  propositions  in  relation  to  it. 

1.  The  charter  is  not,  and  was  not,  intended  to  be  an  act  for 
the  incorporation  of  a  trading  or  merchants'  company  merely. 
But  it  was  a  grant  which  contemplated  the  settlement  of  a 
Colony,  with  power  in  the  incorporated  company  to  govern  that 

1  If  this  distinction  between  public  and  private  corporations,  well  settled  at  the 
present  time,  was  not  then  recognized,  it  is  not  because  there  has  been  a  change  of 
principle  since  that  period ;  but  because  the  principles  which  govern  these  two  de 
scriptions  of  corporate  rights  were  not  then  well  developed ;  and  hence  the  claim  of 
the  Crown  to  power  over  both  public  and  private  rights,  and  the  claims  of  the  colo 
nists  under  their  charter,  without  any  distinction  between  the  two.  When  a  right 
application  is  made  of  this  principle  to  the  colonial  history,  it  will  show  that  the 
complaints  of  the  colonists  of  infringement  of  their  charters  were  not  all  well 
founded. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.      365 

Colony.  —  This  is  shown  from  its  whole  structure,  in  the  provis 
ions  relating  to  government,  which  I  shall  specify  particularly 
under  the  other  propositions,  and  moreover  in  the  power  given  — 

"  to  the  Governor  and  Company,  and  their  successors,"  —  "  that  it  shall 
and  may  be  lawful  to  and  for  the  chief  commanders,  governors,  and 
officers  of  the  said  company  for  the  time  being  who  shall  be  residents  in 
the  said  part  of  New  England  in  America  by  these  presents  granted,  and 
others  there  inhabiting,  by  their  appointment  and  direction,  from  time  to 
time,  and  at  all  times  hereafter,  for  their  special  defence  and  safety ;  to  en 
counter,  expulse,  repel,  and  resist,  by  force  of  arms  and  by  all  fitting  ways 
and  means  whatsoever,  all  such  person  and  persons,  as  shall  at  any  time 
hereafter  attempt  or  enterprise  the  destruction,  detriment,  or  annoyance 
to  the  said  plantation  or  inhabitants,  and  to  take  and  surprise  by  all  ways 
and  means  whatsoever,  all  and  every  such  person  or  persons  with  their 
ships,  armor,  munition,  and  other  goods,  as  shall  in  hostile  manner  in 
vade,  or  attempt  the  defeating  of  the  said  plantation,  or  the  hurt  of  the 
said  company  and  inhabitants." 

Here  is  a  complete  grant  of  the  power  to  make  defensive  war, 
without  any  order  from,  or  recourse  to,  the  Crown  ;  and,  of 
course,  according  to  the  judgment  of  the  company  and  its 
officers. 

2.  The  charter  authorized  the  establishment  of  the  govern 
ment  of  the  Colony  within  the  limits  of  the  territory  to  be 
governed,  as  was  done  by  the  vote  to  transfer  the  charter  and 
government. 

I  am  aware  that  Mr.  Justice  Story,  in  his  Commentaries  on 
the  Constitution,  says, "  It  is  observable  that  the  whole  structure 
of  the  charter  presupposes  the  residence  of  the  company  in 
England,  and  the  transaction  of  all  its  business  there."  1  But 
that  position  cannot  be  maintained.  I  venture  to  say,  that  there 
is  no  provision  in  the  charter,  which  either  expressly,  or  by 
implication,  presupposes  such  residence.  On  the  contrary,  if  it 
cannot  be  asserted  that  the  whole  scope  of  the  charter  corn- 
templates  the  establishment  of  the  government  within  the 
Colony,  it  will  be  found  that  it  contains  provisions  which  it 
would  have  been  next  to  impossible  to  execute,  except  by  a 
transfer  of  the  charter  and  government  to  the  place  to  be 
governed. 

1  1  Story's  Com.  on  the  Const.  §  64. 


366        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

The  charter  provides  that  there  shall,  or  may  be,  four  general 
assemblies,  which  shall  be  styled  and  called  the  four  great  and 
General  Courts  of  the  company,  in  which,  in  the  manner  there 
provided,  the  Governor,  or  deputy,  and  such  of  the  assistants  and 
freemen  of  the  company,  as  shall  be  present,  "  shall  have  full 
power  and  authority  to  choose,  nominate,  and  appoint  such,  and 
so  many  others,  as  they  shall  think  fit,  and  that  shall  be  willing 
to  accept  the  same,  to  be  free  of  the  said  company  and  body, 
and  them  into  the  same  to  admit ;  and  to  elect  and  constitute 
such  officers  as  they  shall  think  fit  and  requisite,  for  the  ordering, 
managing,  and  despatching  of  the  affairs  of  the  company." 

Is  it  possible  to  believe  that  none  of  the  emigrants,  —  the 
very  men  most  interested  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of 
the  company, — were  to  be  admitted  as  freemen,  so  as  to  have 
a  voice  ?  It  would  seem  much  more  probable  that  it  should  have 
been  intended  they  should  form  a  majority.  But  how  were 
they  to  attend  the  four  General  Courts,  if  these  were  held  in 
England  ? 

The  clauses  in  relation  to  the  election  and  removal  of  officers, 
and  to  the  administration  of  the  oaths  of  office,  are  still  more 
significant. 

"  Yearly,  once  in  the  year,"  namely,  the  last  Wednesday  in 
Easter  term,  the  Governor,  deputy  governor,  and  assistants,  and 
all  other  officers  of  the  company,  were  to  be  "  newly  chosen  for 
the  year  ensuing,"  in  the  General  Court,  or  assembly,  to  be  held 
for  that  day  and  time,  by  the  greater  part  of  the  company,  for 
the  time  being,  then  and  there  present.  And  in  case  the  Gov 
ernor,  deputy  governor,  any  of  the  assistants,  or  any  other  of  the 
officers  to  be  appointed  for  the  company,  should  die,  or  be  re 
moved  (power  being  given  to  the  company  to  remove  for  any 
misdemeanor  or  defect),  it  was  made  lawful  for  the  company,  in 
any  of  their  assemblies,  to  proceed  to  a  new  election  in  the  place 
of  the  officer  so  dying  or  removed ;  "  and  immediately  upon  and 
after  such  election,"  the  authority,  office,  and  power,  before  given 
to  the  officer  removed,  were  to  cease  and  determine. 

By  another  provision  of  the  charter,  the  Governor,  deputy 
governor,  assistants,  and  all  other  officers  to  be  appointed  and 
chosen,  were  required  before  they  undertook  the  execution  of 
their  respective  offices,  to  take  an  oath  for  the  faithful  perform- 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       367 

ance  of  their  duties.  The  Governor  was  to  take  the  oath  of 
office  before  the  deputy  governor,  or  two  of  the  assistants ;  and 
the  deputy  governor,  and  assistants,  and  all  other  officers  chosen 
from  time  to  time,  were  to  take  their  oaths  before  the  Governor 
of  the  company. 

It  is  readily  seen  that  these  provisions  of  the  charter  could  be 
conveniently  executed,  if  the  company  was  within  the  Colony, 
and  the  government  administered  there.  And  a  very  slight 
examination  shows  how  nearly  impossible  it  would  be  to  ex 
ecute  them,  if  the  Colony  was  to  be  governed  by  a  company  in 
England.  In  the  case  of  the  death  of  the  incumbent  of  an 
office,  the  duties  of  which  were  to  be  performed  in  the  Colony, 
it  would  take  a  month  for  the  intelligence  of  the  decease  to 
reach  the  company  in  England,  and  at  least  a  month  or  six 
weeks  more,  ordinarily  a  much  longer  time,  for  a  notice  of  the 
new  election  to  reach  the  Colony ;  during  which  time,  there 
would  be  no  regular  officer  to  perform  the  duties. 

Is  it  answered  that  provision  could  be  made  by  law,  that  in 
such  case  the  duties  should  be  performed  by  some  other  officer? 
That  will  not  apply  to  the  case  of  a  removal,  as  it  could  not  be 
known  that  the  officer  was  removed,  until  a  month  or  six  weeks 
after  the  removal  was  made,  and  yet  the  office  would  be  vacated 
at  the  time  of  the  removal  by  the  company  in  England ;  the 
officer  performing  acts  supposed  to  be  official,  but  which  would 
be  void. 

The  provision  in  relation  to  the  oaths  of  office  would  be  more 
nearly  impracticable.  All  the  officers,  as  we  have  seen,  whether 
newly  elected  at  an  annual  election,  or  to  fill  vacancies  occasioned 
by  death  or  removal,  were  to  take  the  oath  of  office  before  they 
could  execute  the  duties  of  the  office ;  so  that  if  the  company 
remained  in  England,  and  the  General  Courts  were  held  there, 
all  the  officers  chosen  for  the  managing  and  despatching  of  the 
affairs  of  the  company,  who  resided  in  the  plantation,  and  most 
of  them  must  be  there,  would  have  to  go  to  England  to  take 
their  oaths  of  office,  before  they  could  execute  their  offices ;  or, 
the  Governor  would  be  obliged  to  be  in  the  plantation  to  admin 
ister  the  oaths  there,  after  notice  who  were  elected ;  and  after 
each  annual  election,  the  deputy  governor,  or  two  assistants, 
must  first  administer  the  oath  to  him,  before  he  could  go  to  the 


368       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

plantation,  or  if  he  were  there,  must  go  themselves  to  the  planta 
tion  to  find  him,  and  administer  the  oath  there,  before  he  could 
administer  the  oaths  to  others.  Such  a  state  of  things  would 
furnish  too  great  a  temptation,  in  any  but  a  Puritan  community, 
to  some  other  oaths  than  oaths  of  office. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  in  the  clause  authorizing  the 
General  Court  to  make  laws,  there  is  a  provision  which  would 
authorize  a  law,  by  which  other  persons  than  the  Governor, 
deputy  governor,  or  assistants,  might  administer  oaths ;  and  this 
may  be  true  in  relation  to  oaths  to  be  administered  to  any 
officers,  other  than  "  all  other  officers  to  be  hereafter  chosen  as 
aforesaid,  from  time  to  time,"  by  the  company,  although  the 
provision  refers  more  particularly  to  laws  prescribing  the  forms 
of  oaths  than  to  the  administration  of  them,  as  will  be  seen  by  a 
reference  to  the  provision  itself. 

If,  however,  it  is  assumed  that  it  conferred  power  to  make 
laws  for  the  administration  of  oaths  by  such  persons  as  the  laws 
of  the  Colony  should  prescribe,  it  must  be  limited  to  officers 
other  than  those  chosen  by  the  company.  It  could  not  be  con 
strued  to  authorize  a  law  providing  for  the  administration  of 
oaths  to  the  Governor,  deputy  governor,  assistants,  or  to  "  all 
other  officers  to  be  appointed  and  chosen  as  aforesaid  "  (that  is, 
to  all  officers  of  the  company),  otherwise  than  according  to  the 
special  provisions  of  the  charter  already  considered  prescribing 
before  whom  they  should  take  their  oaths ;  for,  thus  construed,  it 
would  give  a  power  to  make  laws  contradictory  to  the  provisions 
of  the  charter  itself,  which  would  be  a  construction  entirely  in 
admissible. 

No  general  provision  authorizing  the  making  of  laws,  "  for  the 
settling  of  the  forms  and  ceremonies  of  government  and  magis 
tracy,"  "  for  naming  and  styling  of  all  sorts  of  officers,  both 
superior  and  inferior,"  for  "  setting  forth  the  duties,  powers,  and 
limits,  of  every  such  office  and  place,  and  the  forms  of  such 
oaths  warrantable  by  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  our  realm  of 
England,  as  shall  be  respectively  ministered  unto  them,"  &c., 
can  operate  to  abrogate  the  special  provisions  which  precede  it ; 
—  authorizing  the  election  of  officers,  annual  elections,  appoint 
ments  in  case  of  death  and  removal,  and  providing  that  "  the 
newly  elected  deputy  governor,  and  assistants,  and  all  other 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        369 

officers  to  be  hereafter  chosen  as  aforesaid,  from  time  to  time, 
shall  take  the  oaths  to  their  places  respectively  belonging  before 
the  Governor  of  the  company  for  the  time  being." 

Who,  then,  were  the  other  officers  to  be  hereafter  chosen,  as 
aforesaid,  from  time  to  time,  respecting  whom  it  was  specially 
provided  that  they  should  take  their  oaths  before  the  Governor  ? 
Certainly  not  merely  the  secretary,  treasurer,  and  other  persons, 
who  should  be  directly  connected  with  the  meetings  of  the  com 
pany.  If  the  King  had  undertaken  to  plant  a  Colony,  to  prescribe 
the  laws,  and  to  appoint  the  officers;  all  the  officers, — judges, 
sheriffs,  attorney-general,  &c.,  appointed  by  him,  would  have 
been  officers  of  the  Crown.  When,  instead  of  this,  he  com 
mitted  the  planting,  ruling,  appointing  officers,  &c.,  to  the  com 
pany;  the  judges,  sheriffs,  justices  of  the  peace,  and  other  officers 
appointed  directly  by  the  company,  were  officers  of  the  com 
pany,  as  much  so  as  the  secretary  and  treasurer;  and,  as 
such,  they  were  among  the  "other  officers,"  who  were  required 
by  the  charter,  to  take  their  oaths  before  the  Governor.  Legis 
lation  providing  for  the  administration  of  oaths  to  officers 
not  appointed  by  the  company  might  be  valid ;  as  would  be 
provisions  for  the  administration  of  oaths  to  jurymen,  wit 
nesses,  &c. 

If  we  infer  that  there  was  no  supposition  that  the  plantation 
would  become  so  large  as  to  require  a  great  force  of  officers,  it 
does  not  change  the  construction  of  the  charter. 

I  admit  that  there  were  some  proceedings  which  tend  to  show, 
that  the  requirements  of  the  charter  in  respect  to  oaths  were 
not  fully  understood  by  the  members  of  the  company  generally. 
At  the  General  Court  in  England,  on  the  80th  April,  1629, 
Endicott,  who  had  come  over  as  governor  of  the  plantation, 
before  the  charter  was  granted,  was  elected  or  confirmed  as 
governor,  and  a  deputy  governor  and  council  were  appointed; 
and  it  was  ordered,  that  the  Governor,  deputy  governor,  and 
council  then  in  New  England,  should  make  choice  of  a  sec 
retary  and  other  needful  officers,  and  should  frame  and  ad 
minister  to  them  such  oaths  as  they  should  think  good.  But 
this  was  very  soon  after  the  charter  was  procured,  and  while  its 
provisions  were  imperfectly  understood,  as  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that,  at  the  same  meeting,  it  was  ordered,  that  Governor 

24 


370        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Endicott,  or  his  deputy,  and  the  council,  having  taken  their 
oaths,  — 

"  shall  have  full  power  and  authority,  and  they  are  hereby  authorized,  by 
power  derived  from  His  Majesty's  letters  patent,  to  make,  ordain,  and 
establish  all  manner  of  wholesome  and  reasonable  orders,  laws,  statutes, 
ordinances,  directions,  and  instructions,  not  contrary  to  thte  laws  of  the 
realm  of  England,  for  the  present  government  of  our  plantation,  and  the 
inhabitants  residing  within  the  limits  of  our  plantation,  a  copy  of  all  which 
orders  is  to  be  sent  to  the  company  in  England."  1 

It  is  quite  clear,  that  those  who  passed  this  vote  to  confer  upon 
the  administrative  government  in  the  plantation  —  "by  power," 
as  they  alleged,  "  derived  from  His  Majesty's  letters  patent "  — 
full  authority  to  make  laws,  while  the  company  to  which  the 
power  was  granted  existed  in  England,  had  not  an  exact  compre 
hension  of  the  nature  and  character  of  the  charter ;  for  this  vote 
assumed,  that  the  power  to  make  laws  was  assignable,  or  rather 
that  it  might  be  duplicated.  Whether  there  were  those  who  had 
a  better  knowledge,  but  thought  that  some  such  measure  was 
necessary  until  the  charter  and  government  could  be  transferred, 
cannot  now  be  known. 

The  attempt  at  two  governments,  in  a  modified  form,  con 
tinued  some  time  afterwards. 

"  It  was  thought  fit,  in  making  the  transfer,  that  the  government  of  per 
sons  should  be  held  in  the  plantation,  and  the  government  of  trade  and 
merchandise  should  be  in  England." 

These  proceedings  occasioned  the  charge  in  the  quo  warranto, 
in  1635,  that  they  held  two  councils,  —  one  in  England,  and  the 
other  in  America. 

Authority  was  also  given  by  the  charter  to  the  Governor, 
deputy  governor,  or  any  two  assistants,  to  administer  "  the  oath 
and  oaths  of  supremacy  and  allegiance,  or  either  of  them,  to  all 
and  every  person  and  persons,  which  shall  at  any  time  or  times 
go  to  or  pass  to  the  lands  and  premises  "  granted,  to  inhabit  the 
same. 

Persons,  not  subjects,  might  go  with  the  assent  of  the  com 
pany.  Suppose  there  had  been  a  disposition  to  administer 
these  oaths,  and  all  persons  had  been  required,  in  conformity 

l  See  Mass.  Records,  vol.  i.  pp.  38,  361,  386  ;  Hazard's  Coll.,  vol.  i.  pp.  256,  268. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.        371 

with  this  authority,  to  take  them  :  were  persons  proposing  to 
emigrate,  to  seek,  in  England,  for  the  officers  authorized  to 
administer  them,  and  take  the  oaths  before  embarkation  ?  Were 
strangers,  —  foreigners,  —  expected  to  do  so  ? 

The  absurdity  of  provisions  intended  to  operate  in  the  manner 
stated,  more  especially  in  relation  to  removals  and  the  adminis 
tration  of  the  oaths  of  office,  furnishes  plenary  evidence  that  no 
construction  was  intended  confining  the  company  to  England  ; 
and  we  are  led,  therefore,  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  transfer 
was  not  only  beyond  exception,  but  that  it  was  perhaps  con 
templated  by  some  of  the  parties  interested,  when  the  charter 
was  granted. 

The  intrinsic  difficulty  of  making  laws  for  and  governing 
such  a  colony  by  a  corporation  having  its  locality  in  England, 
would  seem  to  be  so  apparent  as  to  be  evidence  respecting  the 
intent,  and  the  true  construction  of  the  charter. 

It  was  necessarily  within  the  scope  of  the  charter,  that  the 
grantees  should  occupy  and  cultivate  the  lands  confirmed  and 
granted  by  it,  in  the  place  where  they  were  situated.  It  was 
equally,  if  not  necessarily,  within  its  scope,  to  exercise  the  private 
corporate  privileges  which  related  to  those  lands,  in  the  place  of 
their  location,  —  and  to  institute  and  administer  the  political 
government,  over  the  persons  settled  upon  them,  in  the  place 
which  they  inhabited. 

There  is  also  strong  extraneous  evidence  to  show,  that  there 
must  have  been  a  supposition,  on  the  part  of  some  of  those  con 
cerned,  that  the  charter  and  government  would  be  transferred  at 
an  early  day.  Before  the  charter  was  obtained,  and,  it  seems  prob 
able,  during  the  time  in  which  efforts  were  making  to  procure  it, 
the  grantees,  under  the  grant  from  the  Council  of  Plymouth,  had 
adopted  measures  for  the  settlement  of  the  plantation.  Endicott 
embarked  in  June,  1628 ;  arriving  in  September,  with  power  to 
manage  their  affairs,  and  it  appears  with  the  title  of  Governor. 
A  letter  was  addressed  to  him  and  others,  April  17,  1629,  inform 
ing  them  that  the  charter  was  obtained,  confirming  him  as 
governor,  and  joining  seven  persons  with  him  as  a  council. 
Then  came  the  proceedings  of  April  30th  already  referred  to. 
The  experience  of  less  than  a  year  may  have  shown  the  neces 
sity  of  having  oaths  of  office  administered  in  the  plantation,  and 


372        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

of  having  the  laws  made  where  they  were  to  be  administered, 
and  thus  have  led  to  the  orders  of  that  date,  without  much 
study  of  the  charter  itself,  by  those  members  of  the  company 
who  had  not  been  actively  engaged  in  procuring  it ;  while  those 
who  better  understood  its  provisions,  in  view  of  the  probable 
transfer  of  the  charter  and  government  in  a  short  time,  did  not 
deem  it  expedient  to  interpose  objections. 

At  a  General  Court  under  the  charter,  May  13,  1629,  Cradock 
was  elected  governor  of  the  company  for  the  year  ensuing.1 
But  at  a  court  held  July  28th,  "  Mr.  Governor  read  certain  prop 
ositions,  conceived  by  himself;  viz.,  that  for  the  advancement  of 
the  plantation,  the  inducing  persons  of  worth  and  quality  to 
transplant  themselves  and  families  thither,  and  for  other  weighty 
reasons  therein  contained,  to  transfer  the  government  of  the 
plantation  to  those  that  shall  inhabit  there,  and  not  to  continue 
the  same  in  subordination  to  the  company  here,  as  it  now  is." 
Those  present  were  desired  privately  and  seriously  to  consider 
of  it,  and  produce  their  reasons  at  the  next  General  Court,  and 
in  the  mean  time  to  carry  the  business  secretly  that  it  be  not 
divulged.2 

This  was,  doubtless,  in  connection  with  the  negotiations  with 
Winthrop  and  others,  to  come  over  and  settle.  But  following 
so  closely  upon  the  grant  of  the  charter,  and  taken  in  connection 
with  its  provisions,  the  inference  is  strong,  I  think,  that  the  mat 
ter  had  been  previously  agitated  among  some  of  those  interested. 

At  a  General  Court  held  August  29th,  the  reasons  pro  and 
contra  having  been  heard,  it  appeared,  by  a  hand  vote,  that  it 
was  the  general  desire  and  consent  of  the  company,  that  the 
government  and  plantation  should  be  settled  in  New  England, 
and  it  was  ordered  accordingly.3 

Other  evidence  is  derived  from  the  fact,  that  no  objection 
appears  to  have  been  made  by  the  King  or  his  Council,  which 
strengthens  the  inference  that  the  crown  lawyers,  who  examined 
the  charter,  must  have  supposed  that  such  a  movement  was 
probable. 

Mr.  Justice  Story  says,  "  The  power  of  the  corporation  to  make  the 
transfer  has  been  seriously  doubted,  and  even  denied.  But  the  boldness 

1  Mass.  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  40.  2  Mass.  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  49. 

3  Mass.  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  51. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        373 

of  the  step  is  not  more  striking  than  the  silent  acquiescence  of  the  King 
in  permitting  it  to  take  place."  l 

If,  however,  we  suppose  that  some  of  his  councillors,  when 
the  charter  was  examined,  saw  that  this  might  be  done,  the 
wonder  ceases.2 

Upon  petition  of  Sir  Christopher  Gardiner,  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorges,  and  Captain  John  Mason,  growing  in  part,  doubtless, 
out  of  Gardiner's  grievances,  and  in  part,  probably,  out  of  the 
conflict  of  title  in  the  others,  but  representing  "  great  distraction 
and  much  disorder "  in  New  England,  the  matter  was  referred 
to  the  Privy  Council,  and  examined  by  a  committee,  who  heard 
the  complainants,  and  divers  of  the  principal  adventurers. 
Whereupon,  without  determining  certain  contested  matters  of 
fact,  resting  to  be  proved  by  parties  that  must  be  called  from  the 
Colony,  the  Council,  Jan.  19,  1632,  "  not  laying  the  fault  or 
fancies  (if  any  be),  of  some  particular  men,  upon  the  general 
government  or  principal  adventurers,"3  thought  fit  to  declare 
"  that  the  appearances  were  so  fair,  and  hopes  so  great,  that  the 
country  would  prove  both  beneficial  to  this  kingdom,  and  prof 
itable  to  the  particulars,  as  that  the  adventurers  had  cause  to  go 
on  cheerfully  with  their  undertakings ;  and  rest  assured  that  if 
things  were  carried  as  pretended  when  the  patents  were  granted, 
and  accordingly  as  by  the  patent  is  appointed,  his  Majesty  would 
not  only  maintain  the  liberties  and  privileges  heretofore  granted, 
but  supply  any  thing  farther  that  might  tend  to  the  good  govern 
ment,  prosperity,  and  comfort  of  his  people  there,  of  that 
place." 4  This  shows,  conclusively,  not  only  that  no  objections 
were  then  taken  by  the  Privy  Council  to  the  transfer  of  the 
charter  and  government,  but  that  none  were  taken  to  the  general 
exercise  of  the  powers  of  a  colonial  government,  in  the  manner 
in  which  the  grantees  were  exercising  them. 

Winthrop,  in  his  History  of  New  England,  referring  to  the 
first  intelligence  of  this  proceeding,  says,  "  The  principal  matter 

1  1  Story's  Com.,  §  05. 

2  These  matters  are  not  material  to  the  determination  of  the  question  whether 
the   transfer  was  lawfully  made.     But  the  inference  that  it  was  originally  con 
templated  seems  so  strong,  that  I  have  deemed  it  expedient  to  call  attention  to  the 
facts. 

3  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  53. 

*  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  54 ;  Chalm.  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  155 ;  Neal's  Hist.,  p.  154. 


374        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

they  had  against  us,  was  the  letters  of  some  indiscreet  persons 
among  us,  who  had  written  against  the  church  government  in  Eng 
land."  J  But  in  a  subsequent  paragraph,  having  then,  it  is  to  be  pre 
sumed,  received  a  copy,  he  speaks  of  the  petition,  as  "  accusing 
us  to  intend  rebellion,  to  have  cast  off  our  allegiance,  and  to  be 
wholly  separate  from  the  church  and  laws  of  England ;  that  our 
ministers  and  people  did  continually  rail  against  the  State,  and 
church,  and  bishops  there,"  &c.  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  Mr. 
Humfrey,  and  Mr.  Cradock  were  called  before  a  committee 
of  the  Council,  and  a  hearing  was  had.  Winthrop  says  fur 
ther,  that  — 

"The  king,  when  the  matter  was  reported  to  him  by  Sir  Thomas 
Jermyn,  one  of  the  Council,  who  spoke  much  in  commendation  of  the 
Governor,  both  to  the  lords,  and  afterwards  to  his  Majesty,  said  that  he 
would  have  them  severely  punished,  who  did  abuse  his  governor  and  the 
plantation ;  that  the  defendants  were  dismissed  with  a  favorable  order  for 
their  encouragement,  being  assured  by  some  of  the  Council,  that  his 
Majesty  did  not  intend  to  impose  the  ceremonies  of  the  Church  of  Eng 
land  upon  us,  for  that  it  was  considered,  that  it  was  the  freedom  from  such 
things  that  made  people  come  over  to  us."  2 

There  were  subsequent  complaints  from  two  classes  of  per 
sons, —  those  who  had  adverse  territorial  claims,  and  those  who 
had  experienced  the  discipline  of  the  Colony.  Mason  was  par 
ticularly  active,  insomuch  that  Winthrop  appears  to  have  been 
resigned  to  the  providence  of  God,  which,  in  1635,  "  in  mercy, 
taking  him  away,"  terminated  his  efforts  to  overthrow  the 
government.3 

In  February,  1633-34,  on  the  understanding  of  the  trans 
portation  of  great  numbers  to  New  England,  among  them 
"  divers  persons  known  to  be  ill  affected,  discontented  not  only 
with  civil,  but  ecclesiastical  government  here,  whereby  such 
confusion  and  distraction  is  already  grown  there,  especially  in 
point  of  religion,  as,  beside  the  ruin  of  the  said  plantation, 
cannot  but  highly  tend  to  the  scandal  both  of  Church  and  State 
here,"  there  was  an  order  of  the  King  in  Council  to  stay  divers 
ships  then  in  the  Thames,  ready  to  set  sail,  with  an  order  that 
the  masters  and  freighters  should  attend  the  Council,  and  a 

1  Winthrop's  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  100.  2  ib.,  p.  103.  3  Ib.,  p.  187. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       375 

further  order,  "  that  Mr.  Cradock,  a  chief  adventurer  in  that 
plantation,  now  present  before  the  board,  should  cause  the  letters 
patent  for  the  plantation  to  be  brought  before  this  board." l 

The  ships  were  permitted  to  sail,  on  representations  respecting 
the  commercial  interests  which  would  be  affected  by  their  deten 
tion  ;  and  it  would  seem  from  what  followed,  that  Cradock 
answered,  that  the  charter  was  in  the  hands  of  Winthrop. 

Laud  became  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1633  ;  and  his  in 
fluence  may  perhaps  be  traced  in  this  action  of  the  Privy 
Council.  Winthrop  attributes  it  to  "  the  archbishops  and  others 
of  the  Council ; "  and  supposes  that  the  intention  was  "  to  call 
in  our  patent."  2 

Shortly  afterwards,  on  the  28th  of  April,  1634,  a  commission 
for  regulating  plantations,  was  issued  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  the  Lord  Keeper,  and  others,  most,  if  not  all,  of  them 
members  of  the  Privy  Council,  giving  them,  among  other  things, 
power  of  protection  and  government  over  the  colonies  planted 
and  to  be  planted,  "  power  to  make  laws,  ordinances,  and  con 
stitutions,  concerning  either  the  State  public  of  the  said  colonies, 
or  utility  of  private  persons,  and  their  lands,  goods,"  &c. ;  "  and 
for  relief  and  support  of  the  clergy ;  "  "  and  for  consigning  of  con 
venient  maintenance  unto  them  by  tithes"  &c. ;  power~to  inflict 
punishment  on  offenders  by  imprisonment  and  other  restraints, 
or  by  loss  of  life,  or  members  ;  power  to  hear  and  determine  all 
complaints,  whether  against  the  whole  colonies,  or  any  gov 
ernor,  or  officer.  And  then  comes  a  clause,  the  intent  of  which 
may  readily  be  discovered  from  what  followed. 

"  And  we  do,  furthermore,  give  unto  you,  or  any  five  or  more  of  you, 
letters  patents,  and  other  writings  whatsoever,  of  us  or  of  our  royal  pre 
decessors  granted,  for  or  concerning  the  planting  of  any  colonies,  in  any 
countries,  provinces,  islands,  or  territories  whatsoever,  beyond  the  seas ; 
and  if,  upon  view  thereof,  the  same  shall  appear  to  you,  or  any  five  or 
more  of  you,  to  have  been  surreptitiously  and  unduly  obtained,  or  that 
any  privileges  or  liberties  therein  granted,  be  hurtful  to  ws,  our  Crown  or 

1  Hutch.  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  33.     From  the  order  in  which  these  proceedings  are  stated 
in  Hubbard  and  Hutchinson,  it  would  appear,  that  the  King's  expression  of  satisfac 
tion  was  at  the  close  of  this  hearing  in  1633 ;  but  the  dates  in  Winthrop's  History 
show  that  to  have  been  the  year  previous.     Hubbard's  dates  in  regard  to  these 
matters  are  not  trustworthy. 

2  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  135. 


376        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

prerogative  royal,  or  to  any  foreign  princes,  to  cause  the  same,  according 
to  the  laws  and  customs  of  our  realm  of  England,  to  be  revoked ;  and  to 
do  all  other  things  which  shall  be  necessary,  for  the  wholesome  govern 
ment  and  protection  of  the  said  colonies  and  our  people  therein  abiding." 1 

It  appears  from  a  recital  in  a  subsequent  order,  made  in  1638, 
that  the  Commissioners,  in  1634  or  1635,  gave  an  order  "  to 
Mr.  Cradock,  a  member  of  that  plantation,  to  cause  the  grant  or 
letters  patent  of  that  plantation  (alleged  by  him  to  be  there 
remaining  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Winthrop)  to  be  sent  over  hither." 

In  pursuance  of  the  project  for  a  general  governor  for  the 
whole  of  New  England,  Gorges  was  directed  to  confer  with  the 
Council  at  Plymouth,  to  resolve  whether  they  would  resign  their 
patent;  and  in  April,  1635,  the  Duke  of  Lenox  and  others  of 
that  company,  supposed  to  be  acting  in  Gorges'  interest,  pre 
sented  to  the  Lords  of  the  Council2  a  petition,  proposing  to 
surrender;  but  praying,  among  other  things,  that  the  patent  for 
the  plantation  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  might  be  revoked. 

Under  the  direction  of  the  Commissioners,  Sir  John  Banks, 
the  Attorney- General,  brought  a  quo  warranto  to  enforce  a  for 
feiture,  in  1635.  The  process  seems  to  have  been  founded  upon 
an  assumption,  that  the  company  had  no  rights  whatever. 
There  were  fourteen  allegations  of  usurpation ;  denying  the 
defendants'  claim  of  title  to  land,  their  claims  to  be  a  corpora 
tion,  and  to  have  the  sole  government  of  the  country,  &c. ; 
and  alleging  that  they  made  laws  and  statutes  against  the  laws 
of  England.  There  was  no  allegation  that  they  had  unlawfully 
established  the  government  within  the  colony ;  but  among  the 
usurpations  set  forth  was,  — 

"  to  keep  a  constant  council  in  England  of  men  of  their  own  company  and 
choosing,  and  to  name,  choose,  and  swear  certain  persons  to  be  of  that 
council ;  and  to  keep  one  council,  ever  resident  in  New  England,  chosen 
out  of  themselves,  and  to  name,  choose,  and  swear  whom  they  please  to 
be  of  that  council." 

Also,  to  have  several  common  seals.3  There  was  no  service  in 
the  Colony;4  but  service  was  made  upon  several  of  the  grantees 

1  Hutch.  Hist.  (App.)  vol.  i.  p.  502. 

2  The  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Plantations  are  often  so  called,  and  there  is 
danger  of  confusion,  unless  care  is  taken  to  distinguish  their  acts  from  those  of  the 
Privy  Council. 

3  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  101.  <  Hutch.  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  86. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       377 

who  were  in  England,  each  of  whom,  except  Cradock,  pleaded 
severally  that  he  never  usurped  any  of  said  liberties,  and  dis 
claimed.  Against  them,  there  was  judgment  that  they  should 
not  for  the  future  intermeddle  with  any  of  said  franchises,  but 
should  be  for  ever  excluded  from  the  use  of  the  same.  Cradock 
appeared,  and  then  made  default;  upon  which  there  was  judg 
ment  that  he  should  be  convicted  of  the  usurpation  charged,  and 
that  the  liberties,  privileges,  and  franchises  should  be  taken  and 
seized  into  the  King's  hand.  The  process  was  pending  about 
two  years,  and  there  was  judgment  of  outlawry  against  the 
rest  of  the  patentees.1  But  this  judgment  availed  nothing. 
Jones  and  Winnington,  attorney  and  solicitor  general,  in  1678, 
concurred  in  an  opinion,  "  that  neither  the  quo  warranto  was  so 
brought,  nor  the  judgment  thereupon  so  given,  as  could  cause  a 
dissolution  of  the  charter."  2  The  particular  reasons  were  not 
stated.  But  we  may  well  suppose  the  reason  to  have  been,  that 
there  was  no  service  on  the  corporation,  nor  on  any  of  the 
members  in  Massachusetts,  nor  any  legal  outlawry  as  againsi 
them,  and  judgment  of  seizure  was  rendered  against  Cradoci 
only.  The  reason  for  this  probably  was,  that  the  process  of  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench  did  not  run  into  the  Colony,  because  the 
Court  had  no  jurisdiction  there ;  and  there  could,  of  course,  be 
no  legal  service  there. 

April  4th,  1638,  the  Lords  Commissioners,  taking  into  con 
sideration  that  complaints  grow  more  frequent  "  for  want  of  a 
settled  and  orderly  government  in  those  parts ; "  and,  calling  to 
mind  their  former  order  to  Mr.  Cradock,  about  two  or  three 
years  since,  to  cause  the  patent  to  be  sent  over ;  and,  being 
informed  by  the  attorney-general  that  judgment  had  been  entered 
in  the  quo  warranto,  ordered  that  the  clerk  of  the  council,  attend 
ant  upon  them,  should,  in  a  letter  from  himself  to  Mr.  Winthrop, 
convey  their  order;  in  which,  "in  his  Majesty's  name,  and 
according  to  his  express  will  and  pleasure,"  as  they  said,  they 
strictly  required  and  enjoined  him,  or  any  other  who  had  the 
custody,  that  they  fail  not  to  transmit  the  patent  by  the  return 
of  the  ship ;  — 

"  it  being  resolved,  that,  in  case  of  any  further  neglect  or  contempt  by 
them  showed  therein,  their  Lordships  will  cause  a  strict  course  to  be 

l  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  103.         2  Chalmers's  Annals,  vol.  i.  pp.  405,  439. 


378        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

taken  against  them,  and  will  move  his   Majesty  to  reassume   into  his 
hands  the  whole  plantation."  l 

The  General  Court  replied,  that  they  were  much  grieved  that 
their  Lordships  should  call  in  the  patent,  there  being  no  cause 
known  to  them,  and  no  delinquency  or  fault  of  theirs  expressed 
in  the  order ;  asking  to  know  what  was  laid  to  their  charge,  and 
to  have  time  to  answer;  assuring  their  Lordships  that  they  were 
never  called  to  answer  the  quo  warranto  ;  and  if  they  had  been, 
they  doubted  not  that  they  should  have  put  in  a  sufficient  plea ; 
and  representing  that,  if  the  patent  should  be  taken  from  them, 
they  should  be  looked  on  as  "  runnigadoes "  and  outlaws, 
enforced  to  remove  to  some  other  place,  or  to  return  to  their 
native  country,  either  of  which  would  put  them  to  unsupportable 
extremities ;  and  that  (among  other  evils  enumerated)  the  com 
mon  people  would  conceive,  that  his  Majesty  had  cast  them  off, 
and  that  they  were  freed  from  their  allegiance,  and  thereupon 
would  "  be  ready  to  confederate  themselves  under  a  new  govern 
ment,  for  their  necessary  safety  and  subsistence,  which  will  be 
of  dangerous  example  to  other  plantations,  and  perilous  to  our 
selves  of  incurring  his  Majesty's  displeasure."2 

These  repeated  calls  for  the  patent  were  in  fact  demands  for 
its  surrender,  and  they  so  understood. 

Hutchinson  says,  "  It  was  never  known  what  reception  this 
answer  met  with.  It  is  certain  that  no  further  demand  was 
made."  3  But  he  is  mistaken. 

It  appears  from  Winthrop's  History,  vol.  i.  p.  298,  that  in 
1639  —  the  precise  date  is  not  given  — 

"  The  Governor  received  letters  from  Mr.  Cradock,  and  in  them 
another  order  from  the  Lords  Commissioners,  to  this  effect ;  that,  whereas 
they  had  received  our  petition  upon  their  former  order,  &c.,  hy  which 
they  perceived,  that  we  were  taken  with  some  jealousies  and  fears  of  their 
intentions,  &c.,  they  did  accept  of  our  answer,  and  did  now  declare  their 

1  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  vol.  i.  p.  105.     Hutchinson  appends  to  a  copy  of  the  order 
this  note :  "  Whether  the  intent  of  this  order  was,  that  the  patent  should  be  sent 
over,  that  the  government  of  the  colony  might  be  under  a  corporation  in  England 
according  to  the  true  intent  of  the  patent,  or  whether  it  was  that  the  patent  might 
be  surrendered,  is  uncertain."     But  the  quo  warranto  might  have  solved  that  doubt. 

2  Hutch.  Hist.  App.,  vol.  i.  p.  507  ;  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  269. 
8  Hutch.  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  88. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       379 

intentions  to  be  only  to  regulate  all  plantations  to  be  subordinate  to 
their  said  Commission  ;  and  that  they  meant  to  continue  our  liberties,  &c. ; 
and  therefore  did  now  again  peremptorily  require  the  Governor  to  send 
them  our  patent  by  the  first  ship  ;  and  that,  in  the  mean  time,  they  did 
give  us,  by  that  order,  full  power  to  go  on  in  the  government  of  the 
people,  until  we  had  a  new  patent  sent  us ;  and  withal  they  added  threats 
of  further  course  to  be  taken  with  us,  if  we  failed  ! " 

The  next  paragraph  of  the  History  is  a  curiosity,  and  I  cannot 
resist  the  temptation  to  copy  it  in  full.  It  shows  why  Hutchin- 
son  never  heard  of  the  reception,  and  the  further  demand  :  — 

"  This  order  being  imparted  to  the  next  General  Court,  some  advised 
to  return  answer  to  it.  Others  thought  fitter  to  make  no  answer  at  all ; 
because,  being  sent  in  a  private  letter,  and  not  delivered  by  a  certain 
messenger,  as  the  former  order  was,  they  could  not  proceed  upon  it,  be 
cause  they  could  not  have  any  proof  that  it  was  delivered  to  the 
Governor ;  and  order  was  taken,  that  Mr.  Cradock's  agent,  who  delivered 
the  letter  to  the  Governor,  &c.,  should,  in  his  letters  to  his  master,  make 
no  mention  of  the  letters  he  delivered  to  the  Governor,  seeing  that  his 
master  had  not  laid  any  charge  upon  him  to  that  end." 

The  Lords  Commissioners  frankly  admit  their  object,  in  this 
last  order.  They  intended  to  bring  all  the  plantations  into 
subjection  under  their  commission.  The  charter  stood  in  their 
way.  They  called  for  it,  and  it  did  not  come.  Process  to 
enforce  a  forfeiture  of  it  had  failed.  There  was  a  very  good 
reason  for  this  thrice-repeated  demand  by  the  Commissioners. 
Their  commission  purported  to  give  it  to  them,  with  authority 
to  revoke  it,  if,  upon  view  of  it,  they  found  any  thing  hurtful  to  the 
King,  his  crown,  or  prerogative  royal.  The  possession  of  it  was 
thus  made  necessary  to  a  revocation  by  the  Commissioners.  A 
view  of  a  copy  was  not  sufficient.  No  reason  is  apparent  why 
this  might  not  have  been  made  otherwise.  Perhaps  it  would 
have  been,  if  there  had  been  apprehension  of  difficulty  in  obtain 
ing  possession.  But  so  it  stood.  Therefore  the  repeated 
attempts  to  obtain  a  surrender,  with  the  threats  if  it  was  not 
forthcoming.  It  was  important  to  exhibit  a  semblance  of  a 
legal  revocation.  There  were  too  many  complaints  of  the 
exercise  of  arbitrary  power  in  England,  to  render  it  expedient 
to  add  others  in  relation  to  the  colonies. 

We  have  seen  how  the   General  Court  disposed  of  the  last 


380        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

demand ;  and  the  King  and  Laud  soon  found  other  matters  to 
occupy  their  attention. 

Now  in  all  these  proceedings,  the  character  of  which  I  have 
stated  in  detail,  I  find  no  trace  of  an  allegation,  that  "  the  true 
intent  of  the  patent  "  was,  that  the  government  of  the  Colony 
should  be  under  a  corporation  in  England ;  and  I  submit,  that 
the  omission  of  such  an  allegation  was  a  moral  impossibility, 
if  it  had  been  so  understood,  especially  as  the  transfer  of  the 
charter  caused  the  main  obstacle  to  the  efforts  of  the  Commis 
sioners  to  revoke  it. 

The  first  appearance  of  an  official  objection  which  I  have 
found,  against  the  transfer,  was  in  July,  1679,  in  the  course  of  the 
difficulties  in  which  Randolph  was  so  conspicuous ;  "  when,"  as 
Chalmers  says,  "the  King  wrote  to  the  General  Court,  and  re 
quired  that  other  agents  should  be  sent  over,  properly  instructed ; 
giving  as  a  reason,  which  struck  at  the  foundation  of  its  power, 
that,  since  the  charter  by  its  frame  was  originally  to  have  been 
executed  within  the  kingdom,  otherwise  than  by  deputy,  it  is  not 
possible  to  establish  perfect  settlement  till  those  things  are  better 
understood."1  This  objection  is  among  the  articles  of  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors  presented  by  Randolph  to  the  Com 
mittee  of  the  Council,  in  1682.2  But  it  finds  no  place  in  the 
process  in  Chancery,  in  1684,  in  which  a  decree  was  entered,  that 
the  charter  be  vacated,  and  cancelled.3 

Chalmers,  in  another  place,  states,  that  the  Attorney-General, 
Sawyer,  gave  it  as  his  official  opinion,  "  that  the  patent  having 
created  the  grantees  and  their  assigns  a  body  corporate,  they 
might  transfer  their  charter  and  act  in  New  England."  The 
reason  thus  stated,  is  certainly  not  satisfactory.  Chalmers  adds, 
that  "  the  two  Chief  Justices,  Rainsford  and  North,  fell  into  a 
similar  mistake,  by  supposing  that  the  corporate  powers  were  to 
have  been  originally  executed  in  New  England,"4 — an  opinion 
which  I  have  endeavored  to  sustain,  by  the  terms  of  the  charter,  be 
fore  I  was  aware  of  the  high  authority  by  which  it  was  supported. 

Usage  is  permitted  to  give  a  construction  to  an  ancient 
charter  or  deed,  where  there  is  an  ambiguity.  Here  was  a 
use  of  the  powers  of  government  under  the  charter,  —  holding 

1  Chalmers's  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  408.  2  ib.,  p.  462. 

3  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  ii.  p.  246.  *  Chalmers,  p.  173. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       381 

General  Courts,  and  transacting  all  the  business  of  the  corporation 
within  the  Colony,  which,  if  unlawful,  rendered  all  the  acts 
done  under  it  during  the  time  legally  invalid,  —  with  no  objection 
on  the  part  of  the  Crown  in  that  particular,  although  other  objec 
tions  were  made  that  the  corporation  had  transcended  its  powers. 

If  this  is  not  strictly  a  "  usage"  within  the  general  rule,  it  is  a 
contemporaneous  construction  by  all  parties,  which  is  as  strong, 
and  even  stronger,  evidence  than  usage,  to  give  the  true  inter 
pretation  of  an  instrument.  When  we  add  to  this  the  fact,  that 
in  two  processes  to  enforce  the  forfeiture  of  the  charter,  there  is 
an  entire  omission  of  any  allegation  that  wrong  had  been  done 
in  this  respect,  the  evidence  is  sufficient  to  overcome  any,  even  a 
very  grave,  ambiguity.  But  the  fact,  that  there  is  here  no  am 
biguity,  explains  the  absence  of  all  objections. 

I  am  referred  to  "  A  copy  of  the  docquet  of  the  grant  to  Sir 
Henry  Rosewell  and  others,  taken  out  of  the  Privy-seal-office,  at 
Whitehall,"  authorizing  the  draft  of  the  charter ;  to  show  that  it 
was  the  intention  of  the  Crown  or  Council  that  the  corporation 
should  have  its  residence  in  England.  It  runs  thus  :  — 

"  A  grant  and  confirmation  unto  Sir  Henry  Rosewell,  his  partners,  and 
their  associates,  to  their  heirs  and  assigns  for  ever,  of  a  part  of  America, 
called  New-England,  granted  unto  him  by  a  charter  from  divers  noblemen 
and  others,  to  whom  the  same  was  granted  by  the  late  king  James,  with 
a  tenure  in  socage,  and  reservation  of  one-third  part  of  the  gold  and  silver 
ore :  Incorporating  them  by  the  name  of  the  governor  and  company  of  the 
Massachusetts-Bay,  in  New-England,  in  America,  with  such  other  privi 
leges,  for  electing  governors  and  officers  here  in  England  for  the  said 
company ;  with  such  other  privileges  and  immunities  as  were  originally 
granted  to  the  said  noblemen  and  others,  and  are  usually  allowed  to  cor 
porations  here  in  England.  His  majesty's  pleasure,  signified  by  Sir  Ralph 
Freemen,  upon  direction  of  the  lord-keeper  of  the  great-seal ;  subscribed 
by  Mr.  Attorney-general ;  procured  by  the  lord  viscount  Dorchester ;  Feb 
ruary,  1628.  Memorandum.  Their  charter  passed  4th  March  following." l 

I  will  admit  that  this  is  explicit  enough  to  show  that  there 
was  an  intention  when  that  minute  was  made,  that  the  corpora 
tion  should  have  a  local  habitation  in  England. 

But  I  remark  first,  that  by  the  plainest  rules  of  evidence, 
this  memorandum  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Council,  prior  to  the 

1  Chalmers's  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  147. 


382       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

grant  of  the  charter,  cannot  be  admitted  as  evidence  to  control 
or  vary  the  provisions  of  this  instrument,  as  actually  drawn  up, 
formally  executed,  with  the  great  seal  annexed,  and  made  matter 
of  record ;  or  to  show  the  intention  at  the  time  of  the  final  exe 
cution.  In  the  absence  of  all  ambiguity,  the  intention  is  to  be 
derived  only  from  the  instrument  itself. 

My  next  remark  is,  that  this  "  docquet,"  taken  in  connection 
with  the  charter  itself,  and  other  admitted  facts,  furnishes  most 
plenary  proof  that  the  intention  thus  appearing,  was  in  fact 
changed  when  the  charter  was  afterwards  drawn  and  authenti 
cated.  There  would  be  no  need  of  another  "  docquet"  to  show 
this,  as  the  charter  itself  would  and  did  show  it. 

The  palpable  difference  between  the  terms  of  this  memorandum 
and  the  charter  itself,  in  the  omission  of  an  express  provision  in  the 
charter  assigning  a  residence  in  England  to  the  corporation,  can 
be  accounted  for  only  on  a  change  of  intention  upon  that  point.  It 
was  not  a  matter  which  could  have  slipped  out  accidentally,  and 
the  omission  have  escaped  the  scrutiny  to  which  the  charter  must 
have  been  subjected  after  it  was  prepared,  and  before  it  passed 
the  great  seal. 

Further,  the  docquet  shows  an  intention  at  that  time,  to 
grant  such  other  privileges  and  immunities  as  were  originally 
granted  to  the  said  noblemen  and  others  (the  Council  at  Ply 
mouth),  and  are  usually  allowed  to  corporations  in  England. 
Here  again,  the  great  difference  between  the  charter  itself,  and 
the  intention  shown  by  the  minutes,  is  palpable  evidence  of  a 
change  of  intention  in  this  respect,  also.  It  is  sufficient  to  specify 
the  difference  in  two  or  three  particulars. 

The  Council  consisted  of  forty  members,  each  of  whom  were 
to  be  presented  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  or  the  Lord  High 
Treasurer,  or  the  Lord  Chamberlain  of  the  Household,  to  take 
his  oath.  Power  was  given  to  the  President,  deputy,  or  any  two 
councillors,  to  administer  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy 
to  all  persons  who  should  go  to  the  Colony  of  New  England ; 
and  it  was  made  lawful  for  them  to  minister  oaths  as  well  to 
persons  employed  by  them,  for  the  faithful  performance  of  their 
service,  as  to  other  persons,  for  the  clearing  of  the  truth ;  but 
there  was  no  clause  requiring  officers  other  than  those  who  were 
councillors  to  take  any  oath  of  office;  and  their  laws,  as  we 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        383 

have  seen,  were  to  be  as  near  as  conveniently  might  be  to  those 
of  England.  The  difference  between  the  Council  at  Plymouth, 
and  the  Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  was 
substantially  between  an  aristocratic  corporation,  composed  of 
forty  noblemen  and  gentlemen,  which  was  to  exercise  its  powers 
at  a  specified  place  in  England,  and  make  laws  like  the  laws  of 
England,  as  near  as  conveniently  might  be,  and  which  might 
or  might  not  administer  oaths  to  persons  in  its  employment ; 
and  a  democratic  corporation  of  an  indefinite  number,  which 
was  to  hold  General  Courts,  and  might  enact  such  laws  as 
should  be  found  expedient,  so  they  were  not  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  the  realm ;  which  was  required  to  administer  oaths  to  all  the 
officers,  in  a  particular  mode,  for  the  faithful  discharge  of  their 
duties;  and  which  was  not  restricted  as  to  place,  so  that  it 
might  set  up  its  government  either  in  England  or  on  the  Planta 
tion,  as  it  should  see  fit.  Assuredly  the  docquet  did  not  govern 
the  provisions  of  the  charter. 

After  setting  out  the  copy  of  the  docquet,  Chalmers  pro 
ceeds,  — 

"  In  the  same  papers,  bundle  5,  page  322,  there  is  a  sketch,  drawn  by 
Mr.  Blathwayt,  stating  '  the  clauses  in  the  charter,  shewing,  that  it  was 
intended  thereby  that  the  corporation  should  be  resident  in  England.' 
And,  indeed,  the  whole  tenor  of  the  patent,  as  well  as  the  subsequent 
conduct  of  the  corporation,  evinces  the  truth  of  that  important  fact. 
But  the  following  extract  of  an  agreement,  entered  into  at  Cambridge, 
the  26th  of  August,  1629,  between  Saltonstall,  Dudley,  Winthrop,  and 
other  chief  leaders  of  Massachusetts,  demonstrates  that  truth.  From 
a  collection  of  papers,  made  by  Mr.  Hutchinson,  relative  to  the  history  of 
Massachusetts,  p.  25-6  :  — 

"  *  We  sincerely  promise,  to  embark  for  the  said  plantation,  by  the  first 
of  March  next,  to  the  end  to  pass  the  seas  (under  God's  protection),  to 
inhabit  and  continue  in  New  England.  Provided  always,  that,  before  the 
last  of  September  next,  the  whole  government,  together  with  the  patent 
for  the  said  plantation,  be  first,  by  an  order  of  Court,  legally  transferred 
and  established,  to  remain  with  us  and  others,  which  shall  inhabit  upon 
the  said  plantation.' " 

Blathwayt  was  contemporary  with  Randolph.  It  seems, 
therefore,  that  this  specification  of  clauses  was  made  about  the 
time  Randolph  was  alleging  that  the  government  was  unlawfully 


384       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

established  in  Massachusetts ;  that  is  to  say,  some  forty  or  fifty 
years  after  its  establishment  there.  What  these  clauses  were,  I 
am  unable  to  say.  Chalmers  does  not  state  them,  and,  unfortu 
nately,  I  do  not  find  them  in  the  charter. 

But  the  most  wonderful  evidence  of  an  intention  that  the 
corporation  should  be  resident  in  England,  is  that  derived  by 
Chalmers  from  the  agreement  of  Winthrop  and  others,  which 
he  copies,  and  which  he  says  demonstrates  its  truth.  His  con 
clusion  is  to  be  accounted  for,  perhaps,  by  the  supposition  that 
he  understood  the  words,  "  by  an  order  of  Court,"  in  this  agree 
ment,  to  refer  to  the  Court  of  his  Majesty,  at  Whitehall ;  whereas, 
the  contracting  parties  had  reference  to  an  order  of  the  General 
Court  of  the  Company,  such  as  was  passed  three  days  after 
wards. 

Chalmers  concedes  that  this  docquet  "  evinces,  that  what  was 
so  strongly  asserted,  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  to  prove 
that  the  charter  was  surreptitiously  obtained,  is  unjust." 

I  have  considered  this  proposition  at  length  ;  not  only  because 
the  transfer  has  sometimes  been  regarded  as  sharp  practice  on 
the  part  of  the  grantees,  but  for  the  reason,  already  suggested, 
that,  if  the  transfer  was  unlawful,  the  whole  legislation  of  the 
company  afterwards  was  unwarranted.  The  company  had 
power  to  make  laws  for,  and  to  govern,  a  Colony.  But  their 
authority  to  do  this  was  as  a  corporation  ;  and  a  corporation, 
having  a  fixed  locality,  cannot  hold  corporate  meetings,  make 
by-laws,  elect  officers,  and  do  other  acts  necessary  to  be  done  by 
the  corporation  itself,  except  in  the  place  where  it  has  its  legal 
residence.  In  the  absence  of  prohibition  or  limitation,  it  may 
hold  property,  may  trade,  and  perform  other  acts  which  can  be 
done  by  agents,  elsewhere. 

3.  The  charter  gave  ample  powers  of  legislation  and  of 
government  for  the  Plantation,  or  Colony,  including  power  to 
legislate  on  religious  subjects,  in  the  manner  in  which  the 
grantees  and  their  associates  claimed  and  exercised  the  legis 
lative  power. 

It  granted  power  to  the  General  Courts  — 

"  from  time  to  time  to  make,  ordain,  and  establish,  all  manner  of  whole 
some  and  reasonable  orders,  laws,  statutes,  ordinances,  directions,  and 
instructions,  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of  this  our  realm  of  England,  as 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        385 

well  for  settling  the  forms  and  ceremonies  of  government  and  magistracy, 
fit  and  necessary  for  the  said  plantation,  and  the  inhabitants  there,  and 
for  naming  and  settling  all  sorts  of  officers,  both  superior  and  inferior, 
which  they  shall  find  needful  for  that  government  and  plantation,  and  the 
distinguishing  and  setting  forth  of  the  several  duties,  powers,  and  limits 
of  every  such  office  and  place,  and  the  forms  of  such  oaths  warrantable 
by  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  our  realm  of  England  as  shall  be  re 
spectively  ministered  unto  them,  for  the  execution  of  the  said  several 
offices  and  places  ;  as  also  for  the  disposing  and  ordering  of  the  elections 
of  such  of  the  said  officers  as  shall  be  annual,  and  of  such  others  as  shall 
be  to  succeed  in  case  of  death  or  removal,  and  ministering  the  said  oaths 
to  the  newly  elected  officers,  and  for  impositions  of  lawful  fines,  mulcts, 
imprisonment,  or  other  lawful  correction,  according  to  the  course  of  other 
corporations  in  this  our  realm  of  England ;  and  for  the  directing,  ruling, 
and  disposing  of  all  other  matters  and  things,  whereby  our  said  people, 
inhabitants  there,  may  be  so  religiously,  peaceably,  and  civilly  governed, 
as  their  good  life  and  orderly  conversation  may  win  and  incite  the  natives 
of  the  country  to  the  knowledge  and  obedience  of  the  only  true  God  and 
Saviour  of  mankind,  and  the  Christian  faith,  which,  in  our  royal  intention 
and  the  adventurer's  free  profession,  is  the  principal  end  of  this  plantation." 

"  Willing,  commanding,  and  requiring,  ordaining  and  appoint 
ing,"  that  all  such  orders,  laws,  statutes,  and  ordinances,  instruc 
tions  and  directions,  as  should  be  so  made  by  the  Governor, 
deputy  governor,  assistants,  and  freemen,  and  published  in 
writing  under  their  common  seal,  should  be  carefully  and  duly 
observed,  kept,  performed,  and  put  in  execution;  the  letters 
patent  to  be  to  all  officers  a  sufficient  warrant  therefor,  against 
the  King  himself,  and  his  heirs  and  successors. 

But  there  was  a  restriction  upon  their  legislation,  religious  as 
well  as  civil.  They  were  to  make  no  laws  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  the  realm ;  and  the  question  arises,  What  was  the  character 
and  what  the  extent  of  this  restraint  ? 

We  may  safely  conclude  that  the  meaning  of  the  provision  is 
not  that  they  are  to  make  no  laws  different  from  the  common 
law  of  England,  for  much  of  that  law  was  entirely  inapplicable 
to  their  condition,  so  that  they  were  under  the  necessity  of 
making  different  laws.  Laws  different  from,  contrary  to,  the 
laws  of  feudal  tenure  could  not  come  within  the  prohibition. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  laws  relating  to  the  peerage,  and 
divers  other  matters  of  more  common  concern. 

25 


386        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

So  we  may  be  assured  that  it  was  not  a  prohibition  to  make 
laws  different  from  the  statutes  of  England,  for  it  was  known 
that  it  was  to  escape  from  some  of  those  laws  that  they  emi 
grated.  If  they  could  make  no  law  which  provided  for  a  dif 
ferent  form  of  worship  than  that  which  was  established  in  Eng 
land, —  if  they  must  establish  that  with  all  its  concomitants, 
they  would  hardly  have  crossed  the  Atlantic  for  the  privilege  of 
voluntarily  subjugating  themselves  by  their  own  acts,  to  the 
pains  and  penalties,  and  violation  of  conscience,  to  which  the 
acts  of  others  would  have  subjected  them  if  they  had  re 
mained.  Moreover,  they  had  no  bishops,  —  could  not  consecrate 
any,  —  and  no  one  proposed  to  do  that  for  them  when  the  charter 
was  granted.  Laud  would  doubtless  have  been  pleased  to  do 
them  that  favor  three  or  four  years  afterwards ;  but  their  right 
of  legislation,  or  the  restraints  upon  it,  or  the  removal  of  re 
straints,  did  not  depend  upon  that. 

The  true  construction  of  the  clause  is,  that  they  shall  make  no 
laws  contrary  to,  —  antagonistic  to,  —  in  contravention  of,  the 
laws  of  the  realm  which  extended  or  should  extend  over  them, 
as  inhabitants  of  the  Colony,  and  which  were  to  be  their  par 
amount  law. 

We  are  thus  brought  to  the  question,  whether  any,  and  what 
laws  of  the  realm  were  in  force  in  the  Colony  at  the  time  of  the 
charter  and  emigration.  Happily  we  can  settle  this  question  by 
authority.  It  is  agreed  that  the  law  of  the  conqueror  does  not 
extend  over  the  conquered  country,  until  the  conqueror  pleases 
to  put  it  in  force  there.  And  although  we  now  hold  that  the 
title  of  the  Crown  to  the  greater  portion  of  this  country  was  by 
right  of  discovery,  it  was  held  by  the  Courts  of  England,  long 
subsequent  to  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  to  be  a  title  by  conquest. 
Chief-Justice  Holt,  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  in  the 
4th  of  Anne,  said,  "  The  laws  of  England  do  not  extend  to 
Virginia !  being  a  conquered  country,  their  law  is  what  the  King 
pleases."1  And  Blackstone,  lecturing  as  late  as  1756,  says, 
"  Our  American  plantations  are  principally  of  this  latter  sort 
[conquered  or  ceded  countries],  being  obtained  in  the  last  cen 
tury,  either  by  right  of  conquest,  and  driving  out  the  natives, 
(with  what  natural  justice  I  shall  not  at  present  inquire),  or  by 
1  Salkeld's  Reports,  vol.  i.  p.  666. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       387 

treaties.  And,  therefore,  the  common  law  of  England,  as  such, 
has  no  allowance  or  authority  there."  He  adds,  that  they  are 
"  not  bound  by  any  acts  of  Parliament,  unless  particularly 
named." 1 

Mr.  Justice  Story,  it  is  true,  says  of  the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Justice  Black- 
stone,  "  It  is  manifestly  erroneous,  so  far  as  it  is  applied  to  the  colonies 
and  plantations  composing  our  Union.  In  the  charters,  under  which  all 
these  colonies  were  settled,  with  a  single  exception  [Pennsylvania],  there 
is,  as  has  been  already  seen,  an  express  declaration,  that  all  subjects  and 
their  children  inhabiting  therein,  shall  be  deemed  natural-born  subjects, 
and  shall  enjoy  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  thereof;  and  that  the 
laws  of  England,  so  far  as  they  are  applicable,  shall  be  in  force  there ; 
and  no  laws  shall  be  made,  which  are  repugnant  to,  but  as  near  as  may  be 
conveniently,  shall  conform  to  the  laws  of  England."2 

But  here  is  a  great  mistake,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  Massa 
chusetts.  There  is  no  provision,  either  in  the  Colony  or  in  the 
Province  charter,  that  the  laws  of  England,  so  far  as  they  are 
applicable,  shall  be  in  force  there ;  nor  that  the  law^  of  the  Colony 
or  Province  shall,  as  near  as  conveniently  may  be,  conform  to 
the  laws  of  England. 

He  says  farther,  "  Now,  this  declaration,  even  if  the  Crown  previously 
possessed  a  right  to  establish  what  laws  it  pleased  over  the  territory,  as  a 
conquest  from  the  natives,  being  a  fundamental  rule  of  the  original  settle 
ment  of  the  colonies,  and  before  the  emigrations  thither,  was  conclusive, 
and  could  not  afterwards  be  abrogated  by  the  Crown." 

And  in  the  next  section,  "  The  universal  principle  (and  the  practice 
has  conformed  to  it)  has  been,  that  the  common  law  is  our  birthright  and 
inheritance  ;  and  that  our  ancestors  brought  hither  with  them,  upon  their 
emigration,  all  of  it  which  was  applicable  to  their  situation." 

1  Blackstone's  Com.,  vol.  i.  p.  108. 

2  Story's  Com.  on  the  Constitution,  §  156.  —  The  principle  that  the  laws  of  the  dis 
coverer  extend  over  the  discovered  country,without  any  action  for  that  purpose,  if  sound 
to  any  extent,  must  be  subject  to  grave  limitations.     One  of  the  reasons  given  why 
the  laws  of  the  conqueror  do  not  extend  over  the  conquered  country  is,  "  because,  for  a 
time,  there  must  want  officers,  without  which  our  laws  can  have  no  force."    ( Salkeld's 
Reports,  vol.  i.  p.  412.)  That  would  certainly  apply  with  its  full  force  to  the  discoveries 
in  America.    If  the  colonists  had  found  the  common  law  here,  or  had  brought  it  with 
them,  it  must  have  been  packed  away,  until  the  machinery  was  provided  to  put  it 
in  operation.     Another  reason,  viz.,  that  the  laws  of    the  conqueror  may  not  be 
suited  to  the  state  and  condition  of  the  conquered,  is  applicable,  to  a  great  extent,  in 
the  case  of  settlement,  under  title  derived  from  discovery. 


388       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

This  allegation  may  be  found  repeated  again  and  again,  —  in 
judicial  decisions,  even,  since  the  time  of  the  Province  charter, — 
but  it  must  be  taken  with  some  grains  of  allowance.  Applied 
to  the  early  emigrants  and  their  proceedings,  it  cannot  be  sup 
ported.  As  to  them,  there  is  better  and  more  satisfactory  evidence 
that  they  did  not  bring  the  common  law  with  them  as  a  part  of 
their  law,  than  can  be  derived  from  any  inference  respecting  the 
general  principle  which  would  govern  the  case,  either  as  an  ac 
quisition  by  conquest,  purchase,  or  discovery. 

James  I.  having  the  right  to  govern  the  country  either  directly 
or  through  a  local  government  established  by  him,  granted  the 
charter  of  the  Council  at  Plymouth,  in  the  county  of  Devon, 
giving  the  grantees  power  to  correct,  punish,  pardon,  govern,  and 
rule,  the  inabitants  — 

"  according  to  such  laws,  orders,  ordinances,  directions,  and  instructions,  as 
by  the  said  Council  aforesaid  shall  be  established ;  and,  in  defect  thereof, 
in  cases  of  necessity,  according  to  the  good  discretions  of  the  said  gov 
ernors  and  officers  respectively,  as  well  in  cases  capital  and  criminal  as 
civil,  both  marine  and  others  ;  so  always  as  the  said  statutes,  ordinances, 
and  proceedings,  as  near  as  conveniently  may  be  agreeable  to  the  laws, 
statutes,  government,  and  policy  of  this  our  realm  of  England." 

The  Puritans  claimed  title  to  their  lands  under  this  charter, 
but  not  their  corporate  authority  and  privileges.  Their  charter 
gave  them  power  to  pass  laws,  without  any  provision  for  the 
introduction  of  the  common  law,  and  not  even  requiring  that 
their  laws  and  proceedings  should  be  as  near  as  conveniently 
might  be  to  the  laws  of  the  realm  ;  but  providing  that  they 
should  make  none  contrary  to  the  laws  of  the  realm.  The 
grantees  neither  claimed  nor  recognized  the  common  law  as  a 
part  of  the  laws  by  which  they  were  governed.  There  is  nothing 
in  their  records,  nor  in  their  statutes,  nor  in  their  declarations,  to 
show  any  recognition  of  it  as  their  law.  It  neither  regulated  the 
rights  of  persons  or  things,  nor  did  it  furnish  the  rule  of  judicial 
decision.  Where  a  discretionary  power  was  vested  in  the  mag 
istrate,  he  consulted  the  common  law  with  an  inquiry  how  the 
case  would  be  determined  by  that  law,  and  it  is  quite  probable 
that  he  usually  adopted  it,  because  it  is  said  to  be  founded  in 
right  reason ;  and  for  reasons  of  a  prudential  character,  it  was 
desirable  that  their  proceedings  should  be,  in  the  language  of  the 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       389 

charter  of  the  Council  at  Plymouth,  as  near  as  conveniently 
might  be,  agreeable  to  the  laws  and  policy  of  the  realm.  But 
the  magistrate  was  not  bound  by  it,  being  at  perfect  liberty,  if  he 
thought  fit,  to  act  on  what  he  deemed  a  better  opinion  of  his  own. 

The  claim  of  the  colonists,  that  the  common  law  was  a  part 
of  their  birthright,  and  formed  a  part  of  their  laws,  came  in  at  a 
later  period,  after  their  controversies  with  the  Crown  had  as 
sumed  grave  proportions.  It  was  interposed  as  a  shield  against 
arbitrary  power,  and  was  doubtless  founded  upon  the  clause  in 
the  charter  securing  to  them  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
natural-born  subjects,  perhaps  also  upon  a  general  principle  to 
that  effect  in  the  absence  of  special  provisions.  It  may  be  a 
matter  of  curious  inquiry  to  ascertain  the  precise  circumstances 
of  its  introduction  and  reception. 

The  Puritans  claimed  the  right  to  pass  their  own  laws,  with 
the  Bible,  and  not  the  common  law,  as  their  fundamental  law. 

This  is  conclusively  shown  by  the  answer  of  the  General 
Court,  in  1646,  to  the  petition  of  Dr.  Child  and  others,  com 
plaining,  among  other  things,  that  they  could  not,  according  to 
their  judgments,  discern  a  settled  form  of  government  according 
to  the  laws  of  England.  To  this  complaint  the  answer  is, — 

"  For  our  government  itself,  it  is  framed  according  to  our  charter  and 
the  fundamental  and  common  laws  of  England,  and  carried  on  according 
to  the  same  (taking  the  words  of  eternal  truth  and  righteousness  along 
with  them,  as  that  rule  by  which  all  kingdoms  and  jurisdictions  must 
render  account  of  every  act  and  administration,  in  the  last  day),  with  as 
bare  allowance  for  the  disproportion  between  such  an  ancient,  populous, 
wealthy  kingdom,  and  so  poor  an  infant  thin  colony,  as  common  reason  can 
afford.  And  because  this  will  better  appear  by  comparing  particulars, 
we  shall  draw  them  into  a  parallel.  In  the  one  column  we  will  set 
down  the  fundamental  and  common  laws  and  customs  of  England,  begin 
ning  with  Ma<jna  Charta,  and  so  go  on  to  such  others  as  we  had  occasion 
to  make  use  of,  or  may  at  present  suit  with  our  small  beginnings.  In  the 
other  column,  we  will  set  down  the  sum  of  such  laws  and  customs  as  are  in 
force  and  use  in  this  jurisdiction,  showing  withal  (where  occasion  serves) 
how  they  are  warranted  by  our  charter.  As  for  those 'positive  laws  or 
statutes  of  England  which  have  been  from  time  to  time  established  upon 
the  basis  of  the  common  law,  as  they  have  been  ordained  upon  occasions, 
so  they  have  been  alterable  still  upon  like  occasion,  without  hazarding  or 
weakening  the  foundation,  as  the  experience  of  many  hundred  years  hath 


390        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

given  proof  of.  Therefore  there  is  no  necessity  that  our  own  positive 
laws  (which  are  not  fundamental)  should  be  framed  after  the  pattern 
of  those  of  England ;  for  there  may  be  such  different  respects,  as  in  one 
place  may  require  alteration,  and  in  the  other  not."  1 

Then  follows,  in  lengthened  columns,  divers  provisions  of 
Magna  Charta  and  the  common  law,  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
corresponding  "  Fundamentals  of  Massachusetts,"  on  the  other, 
showing  their  similarity. 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  statement  of  Edward  Winslow,  in 
his  "  New  England's  Salamander  Discovered,"  published  in 
London,  1647,  in  answer  to  Dr.  Child's  "  New  England's  Jonas 
cast  up  at  London  : "  — 

"  As  for  the  law  of  England,  I  honor  it,  and  ever  did,  and  yet  know 
well  that  it  was  never  intended  for  New  England,  neither  by  the  Parlia 
ment,  nor  yet  in  the  letters  patents,  we  have  for  the  exercise  of  govern 
ment  under  the  protection  of  this  State ;  but  all  that  is  required  of  us  in 
the  making  of  our  laws  and  ordinances,  offices  and  officers,  is  to  go  as 
near  the  laws  of  England  as  may  be : 2  which  we  punctually  follow,  so 
near  as  we  can.  .  .  . 

"  And  however  we  follow  the  custom  and  practice  of  England  so  near 
as  our  condition  will  give  way,  yet  as  the  garments  of  a  grown  man  would 
rather  oppress  and  stifle  a  child,  if  put  upon  him,  than  any  way  comfort 
or  refresh  him,  being  too  heavy  for  him,  so,  have  I  often  said,  the  laws  of 
England,  to  take  the  body  of  them,  are  too  unwieldy  for  our  weak  con 
dition.  Besides,  there  were  some  things  supported  by  them  which  we 
came  from  thence  to  avoid ;  as  the  hierarchy,  the  cross  in  baptism,  the 
holy  days,  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,"  &c.  .  .  . 

"  As  for  our  trials  between  man  and  man,  he  knows  we  go  by  jury 
there  as  well  as  here.  And  in  criminals  and  capitals  we  go  by  grand 
jury  and  petty  jury.  And  where  the  death  of  any  is  sudden,  violent,  or 
uncertain,  the  crowner  sits  upon  it  by  a  quest,  and  returneth  a  verdict, 
&c.,  and  all  according  to  the  commendable  custom  of  England,  whom  we 
desire  to  follow.  But  their  main  objection  is,  that  we  have  not  penal 
laws  exactly  set  down  in  all  cases  ?  'Tis  true,  I  confess,  neither  can  they 
find  any  Commonwealth  under  heaven,  or  ever  was,  but  some  things  were 
reserved  to  the  discretion  of  the  judges  ;  and  so  it  is  with  us,  and  no  other 
wise,  our  General  Courts  meeting  together  twice  a  year,  at  least,  hitherto, 

1  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  199. 

2  Referring,  it  seems,  to  the  charter  of  the  Council  at  Plymouth,  which  granted 
to  Bradford  the  charter  of  the  Plymouth  Colony. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       391 

for  that  very  end,  and  so  continuing  so  long  as  their  occasions  and  the 
season  will  permit :  and  in  case  any  misdemeanor  befall  where  no  penalty 
is  set  down,  it  is  by  solemn  order  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  bench,  who, 
next  to  the  Word  of  God,  take  the  law  of  England  for  their  precedent 
before  all  other  whatsoever.  And  as  I  said  before,  if  I  would  enter  into 
particulars,  I  could  here  set  down  in  a  line  parallel,  as  I  received  it,1  in 
answer  to  the  petition  of  Doctor  Robert  Child,  &c.,  mentioned  in  their 
book,  '  the  fundamentals  of  the  Massachusetts  concurring  with  the  privi 
leges  of  Magna  Charta  and  the  common  law  of  England  at  large.' "  2 

Chief-Justice  Hutchinson,  also,  is  a  competent  authority  upon 
the  point,  that  the  first  emigrants  did  not  claim  the  common  law 
as  a  part  of  their  law,  nor  acknowledge  it  as  having  authority 
with  them.  In  a  charge  to  the  grand  jury,  March  term,  1767, 
he  said, — 

"I  don't  know  a  nation  in  the  world,  that  makes  the  distinction  between 
murther  and  manslaughter,  which  the  English  do.  It  was  not  made  in  this 
country  before  the  charter  [Province  charter]  ;  for  our  forefathers  founded 
their  laws  upon  the  law  of  Moses,  which  makes  no  such  distinction." 

In  another  charge,  March  term,  1768,  while  he  repeats  the 
statement — at  that  time,  and  since,  quite  common  —  respecting 
the  introduction  of  the  common  law,  he  is  even  more  explicit  in 
his  declaration,  that  the  first  emigrants  did  not  consider  them 
selves  bound  by  it,  and  did  not  regard  it  as  their  law. 

"  Our  ancestors,  gentlemen,  when  they  came  over  to  this  country, 
brought  with  them  the  common  law  of  our  mother  country  (which  is  with 
great  propriety  so  called)  ;  and  although  their  first  charter  bound  them 
down  to  make  no  laws  contrary  to  the  law  of  England,  yet,  from  the 
situation  they  were  then  in,  and  from  their  peculiar  circumstances,  they 
then  apprehended  they  had  a  right  to  adopt  the  judicial  laws  of  Moses 
which  were  given  to  the  Israelites  of  old.  They  at  that  time  considered, 
not  how  crimes  affected  the  peace  and  harmony  of  society,  but  almost 
always  adapted  their  punishment  to  the  real  guilt  of  the  criminal 

"  Upon  a  judgment  given  against  the  old  charter,  the  people  could  never 
obtain  so  great  a  boon,  as  they  thought  their  old  charter :  since,  you  are 
sensible,  they  appointed  all  their  officers,  made  all  their  laws,  without 
any  control  from  home We  stand,  therefore,  upon  quite  a  different 

1  He  was  agent  for  Massachusetts  at  the  time. 

2  See  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  Series,  vol.  ii.  pp.  137-140. 


392       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION, OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

footing  from  our  forefathers,  and  the  principle  of  our  laws  is  very  variant 
from  that  which  governed  them  under  the  old  charter.  There  were 
several  attempts  made,  since  our  present  charter,  to  enact  laws  upon  the 
old  charter  principles  ;  but  they  all  failed,  and  the  laws  were  disallowed 
in  Great  Britain." 

"The  principle  of  law  which  now  governs  us,  is  to  punish  crimes,  only 
as  they  affect  society." l 

But  all  this  is  not  necessary  to  the  support  of  my  position, 
that  the  common  law,  and  the  statute  law  of  England  in  amend 
ment  of  the  common  law,  were  not  the  laws  of  the  realm, 
contrary  to  which  the  colonists  were  to  make  no  laws  ;  for 
their  power  to  pass  statutes  contrary  to  both,  has  been  exer 
cised  without  question  ever  since  the  common  law  has  been 
recognized  as  in  force  in  the  Colony  and  in  the  Province ; 
subject,  after  the  Province  charter,  to  the  negative  of  the  Crown, 
as  provided  in  that  instrument. 

Chalmers  interprets  the  restraint,  — "  You  shall  make  no  ordi 
nances  inconsistent  with  the  connection  between  the  territory 
and  the  country  of  which  it  is  a  member ; "  and  says  further, 
"  so  a  colony  may  adopt  new  customs  ;  may  abrogate  that  part 
of  the  common  law  which  is  unsuitable  to  its  new  situation ; 
may  repeal  the  statute  law  wherein  it  is  inapplicable  to  its  con 
dition.  All  it  may  change,  except  only  the  principles  of  its 
coalition  with  the  State,  or  the  special  regulations  of  the 
supreme  power,  or  great  body-politic  of  the  empire  with  regard 
to  it."  —  With  this  exposition  of  the  clause  of  restraint,  it  would 
be  quite  unimportant  whether  or  not  the  common  and  statute 
law  of  the  realm  extended  over  the  Colony.  Any  law  of  the 
Colony  inconsistent  with  either  would  abrogate  or  repeal  it, 
without  any  violation  of  the  clause  of  restraint.2 

It  may  be  said  that  the  King  was  restrained  by  Magna  Charta 
and  the  Petition  of  Right,  as  well  in  his  colonial  possessions,  as 
in  England  itself. 

The  colonists  were  subject  to  the  lawful  legislation  of  the 
mother  country;  and  so  far  as  that  legislation  was  extended 
over  them  by  the  force  of  the  legislation  itself,  or  by  the  legiti- 

1  Quincy's  Mass.  Reports,  1761-1772.    Published  1865.    Pages  235,  258-260. 

2  Chalmers's  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  140. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       393 

mate  power  of  the  Crown,  so  far  they  could  make  no  laws,  civil 
or  religious,  in  contravention  of  it.  The  navigation  acts  ex 
tended  over  them  ;  and  their  legislation,  contrary  to  those  acts, 
was  one  of  the  allegations  in  the  scire  facias,  on  which  the 
charter  was  vacated  and  cancelled.  But  it  was  held,  that  the 
habeas  corpus  act,  passed  31st,  Charles  II.,  did  not  extend  to  the 
colonies,  because  they  were  not  named  in  it. 

After  the  clause  authorizing  legislation,  follows  a  provision 
that  the  Governor  and  company  "  and  all  the  chief  commanders, 
captains,  governors,  and  other  officers  and  ministers  "  as  should 
by  said  orders,  laws,  &c.,  from  time  to  time  be  employed  in  the 
government  of  the  said  inhabitants  and  plantation,  or  in  the  way 
by  sea  thither  or  from  thence,  according  to  the  nature  and  limits 
of  their  offices, — 

" shall,  from  time  to  time,  hereafter  for  ever,"  —  "have  full  and  abso 
lute  power  and  authority  to  correct,  punish,  pardon,  govern,  and  rule  all 
such  the  subjects  of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  as  shall  from  time  to  time 
adventure  themselves  in  any  voyage  thither  or  from  thence,  or  that  shall 
at  any  time  hereafter  inhabit  within  the  precincts  and  parts  of  New  England 
aforesaid,  according  to  the  orders,  laws,  ordinances,  instructions,  and  direc 
tions  aforesaid,  not  being  repugnant  to  the  laws  and  statutes  of  our  realm 
of  England  as  aforesaid." 

The  power  to  pardon  is  conclusive  evidence  of  a  grant  of 
political  government,  no  such  power  being  known  in  an  ordinary 
corporation. 

It  hardly  seems  to  be  within  the  power  of  language,  more 
completely  to  negative  the  idea  that  the  charter  constituted  a 
corporation  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  trade  and  traffic;  or, 
more  clearly,  to  grant  powers  of  legislation  and  government, 
whereby  the  inhabitants  of  the  Colony  might  be  "  religiously, 
peaceably,  and  civilly  governed." 

Whatever  Charles  II.  may  have  said  about  general  liberty  of 
conscience,  of  which  he  personally  made  a  very  large  exhibition 
in  some  particulars,  Charles  I.  and  his  ministers  could  not  but 
form  a  reasonable  judgment  respecting  the  mode  and  manner  in 
which  the  Colony  would  be  religiously,  as  well  as  civilly,  gov 
erned  under  his  charter,  whether  he  ever  read  it  or  not. 

4.  The  charter  authorized  the  exclusion  of  all  persons  whom 
the  grantees  and  their  associates  should  see  fit  to  exclude  from 


\ 


394       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

settlement  in  the  Colony ;  and  the  exclusion  of  those  already  set 
tled,  by  banishment  as  a  punishment  for  offences. 

They  were  the  owners  of  the  soil ;  and,  in  the  absence  of  con 
ditions  or  limitations,  the  owner  of  such  a  title  has  an  exclusive 
right  of  possession.  They  were  the  grantees  of  a  charter  of 
incorporation ;  and  such  grantees,  unless  there  is  some  special 
provision  or  circumstance  controlling  them,  may  determine  who 
shall  be  admitted  to  a  participation  in  their  corporate  rights. 

There  was,  here,  nothing  of  condition  or  limitation  in  relation 
to  their  title  to  the  territory ;  and  their  right  to  judge  whom  they 
would  admit  did  not  depend  upon  the  general  principle  merely, 
but  was  express.  They  were  to  admit  such  persons  as  they 
thought  fit,  to  be  freemen. 

Persons  who  came  on  their  invitation,  or  through  inducements 
held  out  by  them,  or  with  their  consent  in  any  way,  could  not  in 
justice  be  sent  away  arbitrarily,  or  for  any  fancied  dislike.  In 
that  respect  they  stood  like  other  governments;  and  the  proprietor 
ship  of  the  soil,  which  they  held  out  for  occupation  and  settlement, 
would  not  give  them  the  right  of  removal  as  if  such  parties  were 
trespassers.  Coming  by  consent,  and  obeying  the  laws,  they 
would  be  entitled  to  protection.  But  aside  from  considerations 
of  this  kind,  the  power  of  exclusion,  on  fair  notice  not  to  come, 
could  not  be  made  more  perfect. 

The  King  desired  to  limit  their  power  of  admission,  so  that 
persons  especially  obnoxious  or  dangerous  to  him,  should  not  be 
harbored  there,  and  he  retained  the  power  of  exclusion  to  him 
self,  by  an  express  provision,  which,  however,  was  so  limited  that 
he  could  exclude  only  persons  who  were  designated  by  name. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  provision,  that  all  subjects  of  the 
King  and  his  successors  who  should  go  to,  and  inhabit  within, 
the  lands  granted,  should  have  and  enjoy  all  liberties  and  immu 
nities  of  free  natural  subjects,  might  be  regarded  as  evidence  of 
a  restriction  upon  the  right  of  exclusion  by  the  grantees.  But 
this  cannot  be  maintained,  for  two  reasons.  —  First,  because  this 
can  be  applied  only  to  persons  rightfully  there,  or  going  to,  or 
returning  from,  the  territory.  It  could  not,  of  course,  apply  to 
any  one  whom  the  King  had  excluded  by  name  from  going 
there ;  and  if  there  be  this  implied  limitation  upon  it,  in  relation 
to  persons  excluded  by  the  King,  the  same  limitation  must  be 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       395 

implied  in  regard  to  persons  excluded  by  the  colonial  govern 
ment,  which,  as  we  have  just  seen,  aside  from  this  provision,  had, 
from  its  title,  as  perfect  a  power  of  exclusion  as  the  King  had 
by  the  clause  for  that  purpose  in  his  favor.  It  would  be  a  gross 
violation  of  sound  rules  of  construction,  to  say  that  this  clause 
was  a  clause  of  protection  to  persons  who  had  no  lands,  and  no 
interest  in  the  charter,  and  who  were,  moreover,  prohibited  from 
corning  and  remaining  there,  by  the  owners  of  the  land  and  the 
grantees  of  the  charter ;  for  if  it  might  so  apply  to  any,  it  would 
apply  to  all  who  should  go,  and  the  right  to  the  land  and  the 
corporate  privileges  would  soon  be  rendered  a  nullity. —  Second, 
this  clause,  rightly  understood,  is  a  limitation  upon  the  royal 
authority,  to  the  extent  of  its  operation,  and  not  upon  the 
authority  of  the  colonists.  The  King  will  not  put  persons  out 
of  the  pale  of  English  subjects,  —  deprive  them  of  the  privileges 
of  English  subjects,  —  because  they  go  and  inhabit  there.  They 
shall  be  Englishmen  still.  Let  us  see  this  a  little  more  clearly, 
by  a  citation  of  the  provision  itself. 

"  And,  further,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do  hereby  for  us,  our 
heirs  and  successors,  ordain  and  declare,  and  grant  to  the  said  governor 
and  company,  and  their  successors,  that  all  and  every  the  subjects  of  us, 
our  heirs  or  successors,  which  shall  go  to  and  inhabit  within  the  said  lands 
and  premises  hereby  mentioned  to  be  granted,  and  every  of  their  children 
which  shall  happen  to  be  born  there,  or  on  the  seas  in  going  thither,  or 
returning  from  thence,  shall  have  and  enjoy  all  liberties  and  immunities 
of  free  and  natural  subjects  within  any  of  the  dominions  of  us,  our  heirs 
or  successors,  to  all  intents,  constructions,  and  purposes  whatsoever,  as  if 
they  and  every  of  them  were  born  within  the  realm  of  England." 

You  perceive  that  it  is  confined  to  subjects,  and  does  not  in 
clude  strangers.  It  provides  that  these  subjects,  and  their  children 
born  there  or  on  the  passage  to  and  from,  shall  have  the  liberties 
and  immunities  of  free  natural  subjects  within  any  of  the  King's 
dominions,  as  if  they  were  born  within  the  realm.  What  were  the 
liberties  and  immunities  of  such  subjects  ?  Certainly,  not  to  go 
and  inhabit  the  crown  lands  against  the  will  of  the  King,  or  any 
lands  which  the  King  had  granted,  against  the  will  of  the  per 
sons  to  whom  the  grant  had  been  made.  Certainly,  not  to  in 
trude  themselves  into  any  corporate  rights  which  had  been 
granted  to  others.  Persons  who  should  go  and  inhabit  lawfully, 


396       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

should  have  the  general  rights  of  Englishmen  as  secured  by 
"  Magna  Charta,"  and  the  customs  of  the  realm.  But  this  did 
not  exempt  them  from  any  legislation,  otherwise  lawful,  under 
the  charter. 

5.  The  charter  authorized  the  creation  and  erection  of  courts 
of  judicature  to  hear,  try,  and  determine  causes,  and  to  render 
final  judgments  and  cause  execution  to  be  done,  without  any 
appeal  to  the  courts  of  England,  or  any  supervisory  power  of 
such  courts. 

To  the  express  provision  authorizing  the  establishment  of  all 
manner  of  wholesome  laws,  statutes,  and  ordinances,  for  settling 
the  forms  and  ceremonies  of  government  and  magistracy,  fit  and 
necessary  for  the  Plantation,  —  for  the  settling  of  all  sorts  of  offi 
cers  which  they  shall  find  needful  for  that  government  and  Plan 
tation,  and  for  setting  forth  their  several  duties  and  powers, — 
and  also  to  that  giving  full  and  absolute  power  and  authority  to 
correct,  punish,  pardon,  govern,  and  rule,  I  have  already  re 
ferred. 

There  is  no  provision  in  the  charter  for  any  original  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  courts  of  England,  over  the  Colony,  nor  for  an  appeal, 
in  any  shape,  to  those  courts.  And  there  was  no  custom  of 
the  realm,  no  common  law,  which  gave  any  such  jurisdiction. 
If  it  were  supposed  that  the  King  had  power  to  confer  jurisdic 
tion  upon  the  courts  of  England,  original  jurisdiction  in  those 
courts  would  have  been  a  denial  of  justice.  And  an  appellate 
jurisdiction,  afterwards  deemed  oppressive  in  the  days  of  the 
Province,  would,  in  the  infancy  of  the  settlement,  have  been  next 
to  impossible.  The  fact  that  there  was  no  service  of  the  writ, 
quo  warranto,  in  1635,  within  the  Colony,  shows  very  clearly  that 
it  was  understood  that  process  did  not  run  there. 

The  Lords  Commissioners  seem  to  have  been  careful  not  to 
attempt  a  regular  service  of  their  orders  within  the  Colony.  They 
were  sent  in  letters  from  Mr.  Meautis,  their  clerk,  and  from  Mr. 
Cradock,  to  the  Governor. 

Hutchinson,  in  stating  the  proceedings  in  1691,  when  the 
grant  of  a  Province  charter  was  under  consideration,  remarks, — 

"  By  the  old  charter,  it  was  said,  they  had  power  to  imprison  or  inflict 
punishment,  in  criminal  cases,  according  to  the  course  of  corporations  in 
England,  but  that,  unless  capital  cases  be  expressly  mentioned,  the  power 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       397 

would  not  reach  them ;  that  no  power  was  given  to  erect  judicatories,  or 
courts  for  probate  of  wills,  or  with  admiralty  jurisdiction,  nor  any  power 
to  constitute  a  house  of  deputies  or  representatives,  nor  to  impose  taxes 
on  the  inhabitants,  nor  to  incorporate  towns,  colleges,  schools,  &G.,  which 
powers  and  privileges  had  been,  notwithstanding,  usurped." 1 

But  this  construction,  limiting  all  the  powers  under  the  char 
ter,  "  according  to  the  course  of  corporations  in  England,"  is 
utterly  unwarrantable.  That  expression  occurs  but  once  in  the 
charter,  and  follows  immediately  after  a  provision  in  relation  to 
elections.  If  it  is  not  confined  to  "fines,  mulcts,"  &c.,  in  rela 
tion  to  that  subject,  no  reasonable  construction  can  extend  it  to 
other  provisions  which  I  have  cited.  It  would  be  absolutely 
impossible  to  govern  a  colony  in  America,  according  to  the 
course  of  corporations  in  England  constituted  for  trading  or 
even  for  municipal  purposes. 

Hutchinson  inserts  in  a  note  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Hook,  who  was 
consulted  by  Hampden  in  relation  to  the  Province  charter,  among 
other  things,  that  the  grantees  under  the  old  charter  had  "  no 
power  to  keep  a  prerogative  court,  prove  wills,  &c. ;  nor  to  erect 
courts  of  judicature,  especially  chancery  courts."2  This  is  very 
astonishing,  unless  we  suppose  that  Mr.  Hook,  in  considering  the 
express  powers  which  should  be  inserted  in  the  new  charter,  ac 
cepted  the  objections  which  had  been  made  to  the  old,  by  Gardi 
ner  and  others,  without  any  critical  examination.  Certainly,  the 
old  charter  was  intended  to  be  complete  for  its  purposes.  No 
addition  was  contemplated  to  be  made,  either  by  Kino-  or  Parlia 
ment.  How  were  the  people  to  be  civilly  and  peaceably  gov 
erned,  without  courts  ?  Was  the  power  to  punish  and  pardon 
to  be  exercised  without  any  judgment  of  conviction  ?  What  is 
meant  by  the  power  granted  to  make  laws,  "  as  well  for  settling 
of  the  forms  and  ceremonies  of  government  and  magistracy,  fit 
and  necessary  for  the  said  plantation,"  —  "and  for  naming  and 
settling  of  all  sorts  of  officers,  both  superior  and  inferior,  which 
they  shall  find  needful  for  that  government  and  plantation"? 
The  idea  of  a  colony  to  be  settled  and  governed  without  courts 
would  be  preposterous. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  propositions  which  I  have 
stated  are  fully  sustained  without  any  resort  to  the  express  pro- 

i  Hutch.  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  415.  2  ft.,  p.  m. 


398        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

vision  in  the  charter,  which  embodies  a  general  principle  of  law 
now  well  understood  and  applied  in  cases  of  doubt,  to  deeds 
of  private  persons,  that  the  charter  should  be  construed,  reputed, 
and  adjudged  in  all  cases  most  favorably  for  the  benefit  and 
behoof  of  the  grantees. 

If  any  thing  were  needed  to  fortify  the  foregoing  positions,  it 
may  be  found  in  the  fact,  that,  in  the  process  and  proceedings  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  to  enforce  a  forfeiture 
of  the  charter,  or  to  annul  it,  there  was  no  allegation  of  a  usurpa 
tion  of  power  in  any  of  these  particulars ;  nor  any  alleged  grounds 
of  forfeiture  founded  upon  either  of  them. 

The  causes  of  forfeiture,  as  set  forth  in  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
were,  that  the  Governor  and  company  assuming  on  themselves, 
under  color  of  their  letters  patent,  power  to  assemble  to  make 
good  and  wholesome  laws  and  ordinances,  not  repugnant  to  the 
laws  of  England,  but  respecting  only  their  own  private  gain  and 
profit,  assumed  the  unlawful  and  unjust  power  to  levy  money  of 
the  subjects  of  the  King,  and,  in  prosecution  of  that  power,  made 
laws  for  levying  poll  taxes,  and  duties  on  merchandise  and  ton 
nage  ;  that  they  had  passed  a  law  providing  for  a  mint,  and  the 
coining  of  money ;  and  another,  requiring  an  oath  of  fidelity  to 
the  government  of  the  Colony.1 

Undoubtedly,  the  absence  of  other  allegations  of  abuse  of 
power  under  the  charter  is  not  conclusive  evidence  of  a  belief 
on  the  part  of  the  crown  lawyers,  that  there  were  none  others 
which  could  be  sustained ;  but  there  is  no  good  reason  why  more 
should  not  have  been  enumerated,  if  it  was  supposed  that  others 
of  a  grave  character  existed,  and  a  transfer  of  the  charter  and 
government,  or  an  exclusion  of  his  majesty's  roystering  subjects 
from  inhabitancy,  or  any  religious  legislation  whatever,  if  sup 
posed  to  be  unlawful,  would  hardly  have  been  omitted. 

I  have  no  means  at  hand  to  determine  with  certainty,  why  this 
process  was  instituted  in  the  Court  of  Chancery,  which,  ordi 
narily,  has  no  jurisdiction  of  proceedings  quo  warranto,  and 

1  The  power  to  coin  money  being,  at  that  time,  not  an  ordinary  legislative  power, 
but  one  of  the  King's  prerogatives,  the  value  of  unusual  pieces  to  be  ascertained  by 
proclamation,  it  might  Avell  be  held  that  the  charter  did  not  confer  it.  And  some 
of  the  legislation  of  the  Colony  may  have  been  contrary  to  the  navigation  acts  of  the 
realm.  To  that  extent,  the  complaints  seem  to  have  been  well  founded ;  perhaps 
somewhat  further. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        399 

relieves  against,  rather  than  enforces,  forfeitures.  In  a  "  Brief 
Relation  of  the  Plantation  of  New  England,"  by  an  unknown 
author,  written  at  London,  in  1689,  it  is  stated,  — 

"that,  in  the  year  1683,  a  quo  warranto  was  issued  out  against  them,"  — 
that  "  the  Governor  and  company  appointed  an  attorney  to  appear  and 
answer  to  the  quo  warranto,  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench.  The  prose 
cutors  not  being  able  to  make  any  thing  of  it  there,  a  new  suit  was  begun 
by  a  scire  facias  in  the  Court  of  Chancery."1 

Chalmers  says  of  the  quo  warranto,  "  Randolph's  was  the  ominous 
hand  which  carried  it  across  the  Atlantic.  And  to  give  weight  to  the 
messenger  who,  in  Massachusetts,  had  little  in  himself,  and  to  the  pro 
ceeding,  which  was  equally  obnoxious,  a  frigate  was  ordered  to  transport 
him  thither."  He  says  further,  "  After  a  variety  of  obstructions,  arising 
from  the  distance,  the  novelty,  and  real  difficulty  of  the  business,  a  judg 
ment  was  given  for  the  King  by  the  high  Court  of  Chancery  in  Trinity 
term,  1684,  against  the  Governor  and  company  in  Massachusetts,  that 
their  letters  patents,  and  the  enrolment  thereof,  be  cancelled." 

The  validity  of  the  proceedings  was  afterwards  "  questioned 
by  very  great  authority."  2 

The  reason  why  the  prosecutors  could  not  make  any  thing  of 
it  in  the  King's  Bench  may  have  been  that  suggested  in  relation 
to  the  former  writ,  that,  as  the  process  of  the  court  did  not  run 
into  the  Colony,  there  could  be  no  service  there.3  It  may  have 
been  that  the  writ  did  not  issue  against  "  the  Governor  and 
company."  The  colonists  instructed  counsel  to  take  that  ex 
ception.  But  if  that  was  the  main  objection,  it  might  readily 
have  been  obviated  by  the  issue  of  another  writ.  If  so  issued, 
however,  it  would  have  been  an  admission  of  the  existence  of 
the  corporation,  which  was  challenged  by  the  allegations  of 
usurpation  in  the  process  in  1635. 

It  may  be  conjectured  that  the  scire  facias  was  brought  in 
Chancery  on  the  ground,  that  chancery  might  annul  the  char 
ter,  though  out  of  its  jurisdiction,  on  the  same  principle  that  it 
now  sometimes  compels  a  man  within  its  jurisdiction  to  give  a 

1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  Series,  vol.  i.  p.  96.          2  Annals,  vol.  i.  pp.  414,  415. 

3  "  The  sheriff's  "  [of  Middlesex,  England]  "  principal  objection  why  he  did  not 
return  a  Summons  was,  the  notice  was  given  after  the  return  was  past.  He  did  also 
make  it  a  question  whether  he  could  take  notice  of  New  England,  being  out  of  his  bailiwick." 
—  Letter  of  Attorney- General  Sawyer.  See  Palfrey's  Hist.  New  England,  vol.  iii.  p. 
391,  note. 


400       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

deed  transferring  a  title  to  lands  lying  within  another  govern 
ment.  But  the  cases  are  not  alike. 

No  judgment  of  forfeiture  was  entered,  nor  any  decree  order 
ing  any  person  to  bring  in  and  surrender  the  charter,  or  to  do  any 
other  act  in  relation  to  it.  The  court  adjudged,  that  the  letters 
patent,  "  and  the  enrolment  thereof,  be  vacated,  cancelled,  and  an 
nihilated,  and  into  the  said  court  restored,  there  to  be  cancelled  ;" 
but  there  was  no  attempt  to  enforce  the  latter  part  of  the  decree. 

The  proceedings  may  have  been  instituted  in  that  court,  upon 
the  ground  of  an  ancient  jurisdiction  of  the  chancellor  to  repeal 
grants  of  the  King,  which  had  been  issued  improvidently.  But 
the  assumption  to  enter  a  decree,  that  a  charter  granting  lands, 
and  corporate  powers,  and  powers  of  government,  and  which 
had  existed  more  than  half  a  century,  should  "  be  vacated,  can 
celled,  and  annihilated,"  on  account  of  usurpations,  which,  in 
case  of  ordinary  corporations,  may  be  a  subject  for  proceedings 
by  writ  of  quo  warranto  in  the  King's  Bench,  —  and  especially  to 
do  this  upon  a  writ  issued  to  the  sheriff  of  Middlesex,  in  England, 
under  such  circumstances  that  there  could  be  neither  service  nor 
notice,  —  would  be  of  itself  a  usurpation.  And  this  seems  to  be 
its  true  character,  whatever  might  be  the  reason  alleged. 

If  the  colonial  government  was  exercising  power  inconsistent 
with  the  charter,  or  with  colonial  dependence,  the  true  remedy 
would  at  this  day  appear  to  have  been,  not  by  process  to  enforce 
a  forfeiture,  or  to  vacate  the  charter,  which,  if  effective,  would 
leave  the  inhabitants  without  any  legal  government ;  but  by  an 
enforcement  or  amendment  of  the  charter,  in  regard  to  its  public 
powers  and  character,  by  the  Crown,  from  which  it  was  derived, 
or  by  an  act  of  Parliament  making  the  requisite  provision  for 
that  purpose. 

The  better  opinion  may  be,  that  meeting  with  technical  dif 
ficulties  in  the  court  of  law,  resort  was  had  to  Chancery,  because 
of  a  better  assurance  of  speedy  success.1 

The  proceeding  appears  to  have  been  no  more  effective  in  its 
character,  than  might  have  been  a  judgment  of  seizure,  in  a  pro 
cess  at  law ;  and,  in  fact,  little  better  than  would  have  been  an 
order  of  the  King  in  Council,  that  the  charter  was  forfeited, 
with  a  revocation  of  its  powers.  However,  the  decree  an- 

i  See  Palf.  Hist.,  vol.  iii.  391-394. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       401 

swered  its  purpose.  The  colonists  were  not  in  a  situation  to 
contest  it.1 

Certain  differences  between  this  charter  and  the  charter  of 
the  Council  established  at  Plymouth  in  the  county  of  Devon, 
have  already  been  considered. 

It  may  be  noticed  farther,  as  fortifying  the  position,  that  the 
powers  granted  in  the  charter  of  Charles  included  a  power  of 
exclusion,  that  the  Great  Patent  to  the  Council  provided,  ex 
pressly,  that  the  territories  granted  should  not  be  visited, 
frequented,  or  traded  unto,  by  any  other  of  the  King's  subjects, 
with  a  provision  prohibiting  all  the  King's  subjects  from  visiting 
or  trading  there,  unless  it  be  with  the  license  and  consent  of  the 
Council,  upon  pain  of  the  King's  indignation,  and  imprisonment 
of  their  bodies  during  his  pleasure,  with  forfeiture  besides.  And 
the  King  condescended  and  granted,  that  he  would  not  grant  any 
liberty  or  license  to  any  person  to  sail,  trade,  or  traffic  there, 
without  the  good-will  and  liking  of  the  Council. 

The  provisions  of  the  charter  of  Charles  were  so  compre 
hensive  that  there  was  no  necessity  for  such  express  exclusions. 

A  comparison  of  the  provisions  of  the  charter,  with  the  sub 
sequent  proceedings  of  the  Puritans,  relieves  them  from  the 
charges  which  have  been  so  persistently  urged  against  them. 

It  has  been  said,  that  "  the  charter  did  not  include  any  clause 
providing  for  the  free  exercise  of  religion,  or  the  rights  of  con 
science."  But  this  is  a  mistake.  It  is  true  that  there  is  not,  in 
express  terms,  any  such  provision.  It  would  have  been  most 
surprising,  if  the  King  had  made  proclamation  of  any  such 
liberty,  by  a  formal  grant.  Bat  the  power  of  legislation,  which 
included  the  power  to  legislate  on  religious  matters,  was  as 
plenary  for  that  purpose,  as  an  express  grant  would  have  been. 
The  "  letter  from  King  Charles  II.  to  Massachusetts,"  in  1662, 
asserts  that  "  the  principle  and  foundation  of  that  charter 
was,  and  is,  the  freedom  of  liberty  of  conscience." 2  And  a 
letter  prepared  for  the  royal  signature,  by  the  lords  of  the  com 
mittee  for  plantations,  in  October,  1681,  not  only  recites  that  the 
charter  granted  "  such  powers  and  authorities  as  were  thought 

1  See  the  Exemplification  of  the  judgment.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  4th  Series, 
Tol.  ii.  p.  246. 

*  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  vol.  i.  p.  378. 

26 


402       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

necessary  for  the  better  government  of  our  subjects,  at  so  remote 
a  distance  from  this  our  kingdom ; "  but  adds,  "  nothing  was 
denied,  which  you  then  deemed  requisite  for  the  full  enjoyment 
of  your  property,  and  the  liberty  of  your  conscience,  so  you 
would  always  contain  yourselves  within  that  duty  which  the 
bonds  of  inseparable  allegiance  bind  you  to."  1 

They  did  not  come  here  to  establish  or  provide  for  any  gen 
eral  liberty  of  conscience.  Tn  his  very  full  and  complete  ex 
position  of  this  fact,  the  reverend  and  learned  gentleman  with 
whom  I  am  associated,  Dr.  Ellis,  stated  that  they  placed  a  re 
straint  —  the  restraint  of  the  Bible  —  upon  their  own  liberty  of 
conscience.  This  depends  upon  the  signification  which  we 
give  to  the  term  conscience,  which,  as  you  know,  is  sometimes 
used  to  designate  the  faculty  by  which  we  have  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong  in  reference  to  actions,  without  regard  to,  and  per 
haps  in  ignorance  of,  the  precepts  of  the  Bible,  occasionally 
called  natural  conscience ;  and  it  is  sometimes  used  to  designate 
the  same  faculty,  instructed  in  the  Bible,  receiving  it  as  the  word 
of  God,  by  which  to  test  right  and  wrong,  incorporating  its 
restraints  into,  and  making  them  part  of  itself,  —  not  unfre- 
quently  termed  an  educated  or  enlightened  conscience.  In  the 
former  signification,  which  is  plainly  the  sense  in  which  Dr. 
Ellis  uses  the  word,  the  Puritans  did  not  seek  to  establish  liberty 
of  conscience  even  for  themselves. 

The  charter  in  giving  power  to  make  orders,  laws,  &c.,  for 
directing,  ruling,  and  disposing  of  all  other  matters  and  things, 
by  which  the  inhabitants  might  be  religiously  governed,  clearly 
contemplated  government  in  matters  of  religion ;  and  govern 
ment  in  matters  of  religion,  in  those  days,  meant  any  thing  other 
than  liberty  for  every  man  to  do  what  his  notion  of  right  and 
wrong  dictated  in  that  matter.  The  grantees  meant  and  under- 
stood  it,  as  government  according  to  the  laws  of  the  Bible.  In  the 
other  sense  of  the  term,  conscience,  that  is,  the  faculty  of  dis 
tinguishing  between  right  and  wrong,  instructed  by  the  Bible, 
and  according  to  its  precepts,  as  they  understood  them,  —  liberty 
of  conscience  for  themselves  was  precisely  what  they  intended  to 
secure.  In  other  words,  their  great  object  was  to  secure  for 
themselves  and  those  who,  with  their  principles,  should  associate 
i  Chalmers,  vol.  i.  p.  444. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        403 

with  them,  the  liberty  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates 
of  their  own  consciences,  —  enlightened  by  the  Bible. 

The  key  to  their  enterprise,  as  thus  presented,  unlocks  the 
repository  of  their  ends  and  aims,  intents  and  purposes ;  and  you 
have  the  explanation  and  the  justification  of  their  religious  legisla 
tion. 

They  founded  a  civil  State,  upon  a  basis  which  should  support 
the  worship  of  God  according  to  their  conscientious  convictions 
of  duty ;  and  an  ecclesiastical  State,  combined  with  it,  which 
should  sustain,  and  be  in  harmony  with,  the  civil  government; 
excluding  what  was  antagonistic  to  the  welfare  of  either. 

Some  one  may  inquire,  If  such  was  the  design  of  the  Puritan 
Fathers  in  the  establishment  of  their  government  here,  why  was 
it  not  more  distinctly  stated  and  proclaimed  at  the  time,  leaving 
no  room  for  misconception  afterwards  ?  The  ready  answer  is, 
that,  if  a  public  development  of  all  their  purposes  had  been 
made,  there  might  have  been  danger  of  some  measures  to 
defeat  their  designs,  and  to  extinguish  their  hopes.  The  King 
and  his  ministers  must  have  known  the  general  character  of  the 
enterprise.  There  was  no  necessity  that  there  should  be  a 
public  proclamation  of  their  intentions  beyond  what  was  made. 
It  is  sufficient  that  there  was  no  stratagem  and  no  deception  in 
the  matter.  Doubtless,  as  the  enterprise  proceeded,  some  meas 
ures  were  adopted,  which  were  not  originally  contemplated. 

Is  it  asked,  How  it  is  possible  that  the  Puritan  Fathers,  who 
were  not  recluses,  but  many  of  them  men  of  education,  —  men 
of  great  intelligence  in  their  day,  —  men  mixing  with  the  world, 
—  could  entertain  the  idea  of  establishing  a  Commonwealth, 
where  religion  should  outwardly  be  brought  to  a  rigorous  test  of 
uniformity,  when  they  themselves  were  non-conformists  to  the 
Church  of  England? 

It  may  quite  as  well  be  asked,  Why,  with  their  deep  religious 
convictions,  they  should  have  had  any  doubts  of  success  ?  Theirs 
was  a  religious  as  well  as  a  civil  State.  The  Jewish  govern 
ment,  which  was  their  pattern  so  far  as  it  might  be  applicable, 
existed  for  ages.  The  Papacy  had,  for  centuries,  claimed  the 
implicit  reception  of  its  dogmas,  and  unhesitating  obedience  to 
its  mandates.  The  Reformation  denied  the  infallibility  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  exposed  its  errors ;  but  the  political  govern- 


404       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

ment  of  England,  as  soon  as  it  gave  support  to  it,  exercised 
a  similar  right  of  requiring  conformity  to  the  new  doctrines, 
and  the  established  ordinances.  The  Puritans  loathed  the  cor 
ruptions  of  the  Hierarchy,  and  sought  for  purity  of  doctrine 
and  simplicity  of  worship.  They  had  unwavering  faith  that 
God  would  regard  their  enterprise,  —  their  government,  —  and 
their  Church,  in  its  unhesitating  reception  of  His  revealed  truth, 
in  its  sincere  desire  to  learn  His  will,  and  do  what  was 
pleasing  in  His  sight,  in  its  simple  forms  of  adoration  and 
worship,  —  with  especial  favor.  Why  should  they  not,  in  the 
full  assurance  of  that  faith,  devoutly  believe  that  God  Him 
self  had  not  only  opened  to  them  a  way  of  escape  from  im 
pending  persecution ;  but  that  He  had  reserved  this  wilderness 
to  that  time,  as  the  place  for  the  establishment  of  that  faith  and 
that  worship  on  an  enduring  foundation  ?  In  point  of  fact,  the 
government  which  they  established,  did  last  for  more  than  one 
generation,  on  the  distinctive  principles  of  their  foundation  ;  and 
left  its  impress  on  the  future,  in  a  more  wide-spread  liberty,  not 
only  for  our  day,  but  for  after  ages. 

With  the  design  and  purpose  by  which  they  were  actuated, 
with  the  deep  conviction  of  the  truth  of  their  principles,  of  the 
importance  of  their  enterprise,  of  the  sacredness  of  the  trust 
committed  to  them,  and  of  their  duty  to  use  all  lawful  means  to 
secure  its  success,  —  all  their  legislation  may  be  said  to  have 
been  religious  legislation.  They  legislated  in  the  fear  of  God, 
and  with  a  profound  sense  of  their  responsibility  to  Him  ;  which 
is  more  than  can  be  said  of  the  greater  portion  of  the  legislation 
at  the  present  day. 

Tf,  however,  we  take  a  more  restricted  signification,  it  may 
well  be  maintained  that  all  their  legislation,  which  had  a  direct 
tendency  to  aid  in  the  accomplishment  of  their  great  purpose  to 
build  up  a  true  Church  and  a  righteous  State,  each  supporting 
the  other,  was  religious  legislation.  All  the  legislation  for 
the  enforcement  of  good  morals,  of  good  order  in  the  com 
munity,  was  in  aid  of  this  great  object,  and  therefore  in  sub 
servience  to  religion. 

More  especially  may  the  legal  provisions  for  the  promotion 
of  education  be  regarded  as  of  that  character.  One  great 
purpose  of  their  polity  was  to  raise  up  a  diligent  and  faithful 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.       405 

ministry ;  and  the  college  which  they  founded,  and  to  which  our 
present  Massachusetts  turns  with  such  pride,  had  that  for  one  of 
its  objects. 

It  is,  however,  of  the  legislation  having  a  more  direct  bearing 
upon  the  interests  of  religion,  that  I  am  to  speak.  We  know 
from  the  character  of  their  enterprise,  what  it  must  have  been. 
We  know  from  their  records,  what  it  was. 

Of  course,  it  had  reference,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  support 
of  the  ministers  who  were  settled  over  the  different  churches ; 
who  were  participators  in  the  hardships,  hopes,  and  labors  of  the 
enterprise,  and  contributed  so  largely  to  its  success. 

At  the  first  court,  held  Aug.  23,  1630  :  "  Impr.,  it  was  pro 
pounded  how  the  ministers  should  be  maintained." 

"  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Phillips  only  propounded.  It  was  ordered  that 
houses  be  built  for  them  at  the  public  charge.  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall 
undertook  to  see  it  done  at  his  plantation  for  Mr.  Phillips,  and  Mr. 
Governor  at  the  other  plantation  for  Mr.  Wilson.  It  was  propounded 
what  should  be  their  present  maintenance.  After  specifying  the  quantity 
of  meat,  malt,  money,  &c.,  it  is  added,  '  all  this  to  be  at  the  common  charge, 
those  of  Mattapan  and  Salem  only  excepted."  l 

Benedict,  in  his  History  of  the  Baptists,  page  368,  speaks  of 
this,  as  "  the  first  dangerous  act  performed  by  the  rulers  of  this 
incipient  government,  which  led  to  innumerable  evils,  hardships, 
and  privations  to  all  who  had  the  misfortune  to  dissent  from  the 
ruling  powers,  in  after  times."  And  again,  he  says,  "  This  was 
the  viper  in  embryo ;  here  was  an  importation  and  establish 
ment,  in  the  outset  of  the  settlement,  of  the  odious  doctrine  of 
Church  and  State,  which  had  thrown  Europe  into  confusion, 
had  caused  rivers  of  blood  to  be  shed,  had  crowded  prisons  with 
innocent  victims,  and  had  driven  the  Pilgrims  [he  means  Puritans] 
themselves,  who  were  now  engaged  in  this  mistaken  legislation, 
from  all  that  was  dear  in  their  native  homes." 

This  is  certainly  very  unwarrantable  language,  in  reference  to 
the  subject-matter.  Whatever  we  may  think,  or  say,  of  subse 
quent  events,  it  is  a  grievous  misuse  of  the  vocabulary,  to  term 
this  a  "  dangerous  act,"  and  a  "  viper  in  embryo."  On  the  con 
trary,  it  was  the  most  natural,  consistent,  and  just  proceeding 
that  could  be  imagined. 

1  Mass.  Records,  vol.  i.  p.  73. 


403       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

The  people  who  adopted  this  measure  were  a  small  company, 
who  had  come  here  with  their  families,  their  religious  teachers, 
and  their  household  goods,  to  form  a  settlement.  We  will 
leave  out  of  our  consideration  here,  their  expatriation,  their 
desire  to  enjoy  the  worship  of  God  unmolested,  and  their  sacri 
fices  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  purposes.  They  were 
religious  persons,  deeply  impressed  with  the  importance  of 
supporting  the  institutions  of  religion.  They  revered  their 
teachers,  looked  to  their  wisdom  for  advice  in  temporal  as 
well  as  spiritual  things,  and  were  bound  to  provide  for  them  a 
support.  If  they  had  not  done  so,  they  would  have  been  worse 
than  the  infidels.  What  more  just,  what  less  exceptionable, 
measure  could  they  have  adopted,  than  to  assess,  in  such  manner 
as  to  them  seemed  best,  a  tax  upon  themselves  for  that  purpose? 
If  they  were  content,  there  were  no  others  who  should  object. 

We  have,  I  think,  in  the  character  thus  ascribed  by  this  his 
torian  to  this  simple  and  just  provision  for  the  support  of  their 
religious  teachers,  the  key  to  the  difficulties  which  afterwards 
arose  between  them  and  others,  who,  with  different  religious  views, 
instead  of  founding  other  settlements  in  the  wilderness,  where 
they  could  enjoy  their  liberty  of  conscience,  after  their  own 
modes  and  forms,  chose  rather  to  claim  a  right  to  participate  in 
the  privileges  of  the  Puritans,  at  the  same  time  that  they  placed 
themselves  in  a  very  obnoxious  antagonism  to  some  of  their 
most  cherished  principles.  They  intruded  themselves  into  the 
Puritan  Commonwealth,  set  up  their  standard  of  opposition  to 
the  principles  and  laws  which  they  found  there,  and  then  com 
plained,  because  the  Puritans  were  not  inclined  to  change  their 
laws  for  the  especial  accommodation  of  their  antagonists. 

I  will  consider  this  measure,  as  it  developed  itself  afterwards, 
when  I  come  to  the  question  of  their  right  of  exclusion,  and  the 
manner  in  which  they  exercised  it ;  my  object  being,  just  now, 
to  rescue  this  first  act  of  religious  legislation  from  the  viperous 
metaphor,  which,  without  sufficient  provocation,  attempts  to 
fasten  its  fangs  into  it. 

One  of  the  chief  accusations  against  the  Puritans,  —  per 
haps  the  greatest  of  all,  —  one  which  comes  with  a  curl  of  the 
lip,  or  a  toss  of  the  head,  or  some  other  significant  manifestation 
to  make  it  emphatic,  arises  out  of  the  connection  of  their 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       407 

churches  with  the  politics  of  the  State,  —  a  union  of  Church 
and  State,  as  it  has  been  called.  At  an  early  day,  they  passed 
a  law  by  which  none  but  church-members  were  to  be  admitted 
as  freemen,  so  that  the  right  of  voting  in  the  affairs  of  the  com 
pany,  and  of  the  government,  as  established  by  and  in  the  cor 
porate  body,  —  the  right  of  suffrage,  —  was  confined  to  persons 
who  were  members  of  the  Church. 

Persons  who  care  very  little  how  many  Quakers  and  Ranters 
were  hung,  are  very  sensitive  respecting  the  safeguards  with 
which  the  Puritans  surrounded  the  ballot-box.  Had  they  not 
some  reason  for  the  adoption  of  a  sure  rule  ? 

Dr.  Ellis,  in  his  first  lecture,  stated  that  there  is  not  in  Boston, 
at  the  present  day,  any  conceit,  notion,  fancy,  or  opinion,  which 
did  not  exist  soon  after  the  settlement  of  Massachusetts;  but 
I  doubt,  whether,  among  all  the  mischievous  persons  and  all 
the  preposterous  notions  of  that  day,  there  were  any  persons 
who  maintained  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  natural  right 
of  suffrage;  that  is,  a  right  by  nature,  in  every  body,  to  partici 
pate  in  the  government  of  all  others,  as  well  as  of  themselves ; 
that  being  the  character  of  suffrage  in  a  republican  government. 
If  there  were  any  such,  certainly  the  Puritans  were  not  of  their 
community. 

Well,  undoubtedly,  we  should  not  select  church-membership 
as  a  criterion  by  which  to  determine  who  should  have  the  right 
of  suffrage  at  the  present  day.  It  behooves  us,  however,  to  be 
very  careful  that  we  do  not  adopt  something  much  worse. 

The  law  itself  is  in  these  words,  "  To  the  end  the  body  of  the 
freemen  may  be  preserved  of  honest  and  good  men :  It  is  ordered, 
That  henceforth  no  man  shall  be  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  this 
Commonwealth  but  such  as  are  members  of  some  of  the 
Churches  within  the  limits  of  this  jurisdiction." 

Can  we  lay  our  hands  upon  our  hearts,  and  say,  that  all  our 
laws  regulating  suffrage  have  as  wise  and  honest  an  object  and 
purpose  as  that  disclosed  in  this  enactment  ? 

Why  should  the  enlightened  people  of  this  day  and  genera 
tion  denounce  or  censure  the  Puritans,  because  they  regulated 
the  right  to  participate  in  the  government  which  they  founded 
upon  that  basis?  —  upon  a  basis  which,  in  their  estimation,  gave 
the  suffrage  to  honest  and  good  men,  —  exceptions,  of  course. 


408       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Thank  God,  being  a  church-member  is  not  evidence  that  a 
person  has  a  bad  character,  even  in  New  York ;  although  there 
may  be  exceptions  which  serve  to  show  that  such  membership  is 
not  conclusive  evidence  of  a  good  character,  even  in  Massa 
chusetts. 

Had  not  the  Puritans  the  legal  right  to  limit  participation  in 
their  government,  in  that  manner  ?  Was  it  morally  wrong  in 
them  to  do  so  ?  Was  it  unjust  ?  Was  it  inexpedient  ?  Unless 
we  can  answer  some  one,  at  least,  of  these  questions  emphati 
cally  in  the  affirmative,  we  convict  ourselves,  and  not  the  Puritan 
Fathers,  when  we  set  ourselves  up  as  censors,  and  condemn 
their  legislation. 

As  to  the  legal  right,  in  the  first  place!  If  the  exposition 
which  has  been  given  of  the  provisions  of  the  charter  has  been 
satisfactory,  I  need  not  add  any  thing  upon  this  subject.  Noth 
ing  can  be  more  clear  than  their  right  to  judge  and  determine 
whom  they  would  admit  to  the  participation  of  the  privileges 
under  their  charter.  They  were  expressly  authorized  to  admit 
freemen ;  they  were  not  to  admit  all  comers.  They  must  exer 
cise  a  right  of  selection  in  some  manner. 

Was  it  morally  wrong  to  adopt  their  principle  of  selection  ? 
With  a  concession  of  the  principle  that  all  rightful  government 
should  be  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  community  over  which  it 
is  exercised,  and  that  in  a  republican  State,  the  question  what 
measures  will  produce  the  greatest  good  must  be  determined  by 
the  majority  of  voices  having  the  right  of  decision,  I  think  I 
might  venture  the  proposition,  that  any  rule  of  suffrage  which 
such  majority  should  conscientiously  determine  to  adopt,  as  that 
best  calculated  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  whole,  whatever 
else  might  be  thought  of  it,  could  not  be  censured  as  morally 
wrong.  But  some  enthusiastic  advocate  of  universal  suffrage 
might,  perhaps,  wish  to  be  heard  on  that  proposition ;  so  we 
will  confine  ourselves  to  the  Puritan  Commonwealth. 

Was  it  morally  wrong  in  the  grantees  of  the  charter  to  deter 
mine,  that  the  greatest  good  of  their  organization  would  be  best 
promoted  by  a  limitation  of  that  character  ?  I  certainly  do  not 
suppose,  that  any  one  who  has  a  reasonable  sense  respecting 
moral  right  and  wrrong,  will  be  disposed  to  argue  that  question 
with  me. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        409 

They  profess  to  have  done  it,  "  to  the  end  the  body  of  free 
men  may  be  preserved  of  honest  and  good  men."  They  are,  at 
least,  entitled  to  the  credit  of  the  motive  on  which  they  professed 
to  act  until  that  motive  be  disproved,  and  there  is  not  the  first 
particle  of  proof  that  they  were  not  actuated  by  it.  Admit 
that  this  rule  did  not  assure  to  them  the  association  of  all  the 
good  and  honest  men  in  the  community.  Will  any  of  you  tell 
me  what  criterion  they  should  have  adopted,  in  their  circum 
stances,  which  would  have  given  higher  assurance  of  the  accom 
plishment  of  the  worthy  end  which  they  proposed  to  themselves? 
If  I  should  pause  for  a  reply,  I  think  none  would  be  forthcoming. 

Was  this  rule  unjust?  Who  at  that  day  should  impeach  it 
on  this  score  ?  It  was  made  by  the  grantees  of  a  charter,  and 
those  whom  they  had  admitted  as  associates,  prescribing  for 
themselves  a  limitation  on  which  alone  they  would  admit  other 
associates. 

The  charter  was,  as  we  have  seen,  in  form,  and  partly  in  fact, 
an  act  incorporating  a  company  to  which  a  large  grant  of  land 
had  been  made,  and  to  which  was  given  the  power  to  purchase 
and  hold  property,  and  the  power  also  to  plant  and  govern  a 
colony  upon  the  territory  thus  granted.  The  charter  gave  them 
expressly,  what  at  this  day  follows  as  a  corporate  right,  without  any 
express  words,  the  right  to  admit  whom  they  pleased  as  freemen  of 
the  corporation  ;  that  is,  as  associates  entitled  to  a  participation 
in  all  their  rights  and  privileges  equally  with  themselves.  They 
might  have  required  a  price  for  the  privilege  of  an  ownership  in 
the  lands  and  a  participation  in  the  franchise  of  the  corporation, 
if  they  had  thought  proper.  But  money  was  no  part  of  their 
object  in  the  admission  of  freemen,  or  in  voting  for  officers. 
They  had  not  even  arrived  at  that  knowledge  of  the  science  of 
government  which  teaches  that  legislators  may  sell  their  votes 
in  a  caucus  for  the  nomination  of  candidates  for  an  office  to 
which  they  hold  the  power  of  election,  and  then  say  that  there 
was  no  bribery  in  that,  because  the  nomination  of  the  caucus 
was  not  an  election.  They  might  have  required  any  other 
condition  of  membership  which  to  them  seemed  just  and  right. 
Under  these  circumstances,  who  should  advance  a  claim  to  thrust 
himself  into  a  participation  of  their  rights  and  privileges  ?  The 
question  answers  itself.  No  one,  unless  he  could  say,  that  they 


410        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

had  held  out  to  him  a  prospect  of  participation,  and  then  refused 
it.  No  one  said  that  this  had  been  done,  even  by  implication. 
The  rule  was  adopted  very  soon  after  the  settlement,  and  was 
known  and  understood.  If  there  was  any  such  individual  case, 
it  would  not  affect  the  principle. 

Was  the  rule  inexpedient?  —  is  the  remaining  question.  We 
might  inquire  here,  on  what  principle  of  right  it  is  that  we  are 
to  judge  and  condemn  them  upon  such  a  question.  We  may 
judge  and  express  our  opinion  whether  they  acted  wisely  for 
their  own  interests,  without  assuming  to  censure  them  for  their 
judgment  respecting  a  matter  which,  as  it  was  then  presented, 
was  one  affecting  their  rights,  property,  and  duties. —  But  let  us 
try  this  question  also.  In  considering  the  three  preceding  ques 
tions,  I  have  treated  them  mainly  as  questions  of  right  and  of 
business  in  relation  to  a  civil  corporation.  This  presents  itself 
in  the  same  aspect ;  but  we  must  also  take  into  consideration 
the  religious  character  of  the  enterprise. 

And  here  there  seems  to  be  no  possible  room  for  doubt.  It  is 
true  that  it  offered  some  temptation  to  persons  to  join  the  Church 
from  sinister  motives.  Few  persons,  however,  would  venture, 
for  secular  reasons,  to  enter  the  pale  of  a  church  so  strict  in  its 
observances ;  and  the  sure  support  which  the  churches  would  re 
ceive  from  the  legislation  of  a  General  Court  composed  of  their 
own-members,  would  greatly  overbalance  any  danger  from  hypo 
critical  members. 

This  restriction  of  the  privilege  of  freemen  to  persons  who 
were  members  of  the  churches,  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  evidence 
of  intolerance  or  bigotry.  Of  itself,  it  required  no  profession  of 
faith,  —  no  creed. 

For  the  purpose  of  admission  to  a  church,  a  person  must  have 
assented  to  the  creed  of  that  church  very  much  as  at  the  present 
day,  so  far  as  the  Church  has  a  creed.  And  so,  through  the 
operation  of  this  rule,  any  person  who  was  admitted  to  the  privi 
leges  of  a  freeman,  must  have  given  his  assent  to  the  creed. 
But  this  assent  to  the  creed,  merely,  was  not  the  reason  why  he 
was  admitted  to  the  franchise.  Somewhat  more  than  assent  to 
the  creed  was  required,  in  order  to  admission  to  the  Church. 
The  candidate  must  be  a  person  of  good  character,  honest,  and 
of  a  blameless  life.  It  was  to  secure  a  body  of  men,  of  such  a 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       411 

$jtf>     A^-p    ^^i  ^^^^  ty&jffl^  LJ^M 

character,  that  this  rule  was  adopted.     And,  moreover,  church- 
membership  was  not  of  itself  the  sole  qualification. 

The  Plymouth  Colony  undertook  to  secure  the  same  result  in 
a  different  mode.  It  was  enacted  there,  that  the  deputies  should 
propound  candidates  to  the  court,  being  such  as  have  been  also 
approved  by  the  freemen  of  the  town  where  such  persons  live. 
Then  it  was  required  that  they  be  propounded  at  a  June  court, 
and  stand  propounded  one  whole  year.  And  in  the  Revision  of 
the  Laws  of  that  Colony  in  1671,  we  find  that  none  should  be 
admitted  as  freemen  but  such  as  were,  at  least,  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  had  the  testimony  of  their  neighbors  that  they  are  of  sober 
and  peaceable  conversation,  orthodox  in  the  fundamentals  of  re 
ligion,  with  twenty  pounds  ratable  estate,  and  to  stand  pro 
pounded  a  year,  unless  it  was  some  person  well  known,  or  of 
whom  the  court  might  make  present  improvement.1 

Which  would  best  satisfy  the  candidate  for  suffrage  at  the 
present  day,  —  the  Puritan,  or  Pilgrim  rule, —  Massachusetts, 
or  Plymouth?  —  more  especially  when  there  was  another  law  of 
Plymouth  by  which  freemen  might  be  disfranchised,  —  a  provi 
sion  which,  if  it  existed  at  the  present  day,  and  were  enforced, 
would  cause  a  great  exodus  among  the  voters.  —  Even  Rhode 
Island  would  not  admit  persons  whom  they  considered  turbulent 
and  unruly,  to  ownership,  or  to  exercise  the  privileges  of 
freemen. 

Of  itself,  the  rule  did  not  prohibit  immigration  into  the  Colony. 
Whoever  chose  might  come,  notwithstanding  the  adoption  of  this 
rule.  Persons  ambitious  of  participating  in  the  government 
might  be  influenced  by  it  not  to  come ;  but  it  would  be  their 
ambition  which  prevented  them  in  such  case.  Persons  might 
not  desire  to  live  under  a  government,  with  a  religious  legislation 
such  as  might  be  expected  from  such  legislators ;  but  it  would 
be  the  desire  for  a  larger  license  which  prevented  them.  The 
rule  itself  might  be  the  remote  cause;  but  another,  operating 
more  directly  upon  them,  would  intervene,  and  a  maxim  of  the 
law  teaches  us  to  look  to  the  near,  and  not  to  remote,  causes,  as 
the  ground  for  complaint,  if  there  be  any.  The  rule  denied  to 
no  one  a  participation  in  the  protection  which  the  government 
offered  to  persons  and  property. 

1  Plym.  Col.  Laws  (Ed.  1836),  p.  258. 


412       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

But,  still  farther,  all  the  alteration  which  Charles  II.,  or  his 
ministers,  required,  in  respect  to  the  right  of  suffrage,  when,  in 
1662,  he  or  they  undertook  to  regulate  the  affairs  of  the  Colony 
was,  that  "  all  the  freeholders,  of  competent  estates,  not  vicious  in 
conversation,  and  orthodox  in  religion  (though  of  different  per 
suasions  in  church  government)  may  have  their  votes  in  the 
election  of  all  officers,  civil  and  military."1  Would  this  rule 
satisfy  us  better  than  church-membership  ?  The  duty  of  making 
up  the  list  of  voters,  on  this  basis,  would  not  be  an  enviable  one, 
at  this  day ;  and  an  action  for  exclusion  from  the  list  might  open 
a  wide  field  of  inquiry. 

The  laws  having  for  their  object  the  conversion  of  the  Indians 
to  Christianity,  were  part  and  parcel  of  the  religious  legislation 
of  the  Colony. 

The  laws  for  the  observance  of  the  Lord's  day  were  very  strict, 
and  provision  was  early  made  for  instructing  the  Indians  on  that 
subject. 

There  were  penalties  for  neglecting  the  worship  of  the  churches, 
disturbing  the  order  thereof,  and  for  reproaching  the  ordinances. 

The  law  against  Heresy  provided,  that  "  if  any  Christian  within 
this  jurisdiction  shall  go  about  to  subvert  and  destroy  the  Chris 
tian  faith  and  religion,  by  broaching  and  maintaining  any 
damnable  heresies,"  of  which  there  followed  a  very  respectable 
catalogue,  commencing  with,  "  denying  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,"  "  every  such  person  continuing  obstinate  therein,  after  due 
means  of  conviction,  shall  be  sentenced  to  banishment." 

Persons  above  sixteen  years  of  age  professing  the  Christian 
religion,  might  be  punished  for  denying  the  inspiration  of  any  of 
the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

But  the  introduction  to  the  law  against  Heresy  disclaimed  all 
power  over  the  faith  and  consciences  of  men. 

And  in  the  proceedings  respecting  the  celebrated  Cambridge 
Platform,  the  General  Court  declared  that  they  could  not  see 
light  to  impose  any  forms,  as  a  binding  rule,  but  gave  their 
testimony  to  it. 

The  Antinomian  controversy  was  not  merely  a  difference  of 
opinion  upon  a  speculative  doctrinal  question,  but  an  open  attack 
upon  what  was  regarded  as  sound  doctrine,  in  such  a  manner  as 
i  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  379. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       413 

to  cause  a  commotion  in  the  State,  as  is  shown  by  the  disarming 
of  the  followers  of  Wheelwright ;  a  measure  which  would  not 
have  been  resorted  to,  but  in  fear  of  an  outbreak. 

Another  part  of  the  religious  legislation  of  the  Puritans,  upon 
which  much  vituperation  has  been  expended,  and  many  sneers 
wasted,  is  that  regarding  witchcraft. 

Are  we  all  quite  sure,  that  there  was  actually  no  witchcraft 
in  the  days  of  the  Puritans  ? 

We  have,  at  this  day,  not  only  our  rappings  and  tippings, 
our  rope-tyings  and  our  planchettes,  but  we  summon  spirits 
from  the  vasty  deep,  and,  unlike  those  of  Hotspur,  they  do  come, 
bringing  with  them  communications  from  the  spirit-world,  which 
must  give  us  a  very  poor  idea  of  heaven,  if  we  suppose  them 
to  have  come  from  that  quarter. 

Is  not  the  difference  between  this  age  and  the  former  mainly 
in  the  fact,  that  witchcraft  with  us  does  not  come  on  accu 
sation  ;  but  that  our  witches  volunteer  their  manifestations,  are 
quite  willing  to  display  their  powers,  and  are  thus  far  more  kindly 
disposed  than  their  predecessors,  not  having,  as  yet,  taken  to 
sticking  pins  into  people? 

For  my  own  part,  my  imagination  could  just  as  easily  mount 
an  old  woman  on  a  broomstick,  and  set  her  careering  through 
infinite  space,  as  it  could  get  up  a  conversation  with  General 
Washington  about  fly-traps,  or  with  John  Adams  on  the  respec 
tive  merits  of  hair-dyes,  or  some  other  subject  of  even  less  sig 
nificance.  And  when  I  give  credence  to  all  the  supernaturals 
of  our  present  time,  I  intend  to  believe  also,  unreservedly,  in  the 
Salem  witchcraft! 

But,  suppose  we  hold  a  little  longer  to  the  belief  that  the  witch 
craft  of  the  former  time  was  trickery  and  delusion ;  upon  what 
sound  basis  are  we  to  single  out  the  Puritans  for  condemnation  ? 

The  legislation  of  the  Puritans  in  regard  to  witchcraft  was 
but  the  legislation  of  the  age  in  which  they  lived,  and  with  their 
respect  for  the  Jewish  law,  they,  of  all  people,  must  have  had 
such  legislation. 

In  England,  the  law  against  witchcraft  was  enforced  with  as 
little  doubt  of  its  existence,  and  of  its  being  a  proper  object  of 
criminal  cognizance,  as  prevailed  in  Massachusetts ;  and  the  exe 
cutions  there  were  much  more  numerous. 


414       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Even  the  Plymouth  Colony  had  its  legislation  against  it; 
and  if  the  witches  had  not  thought  that  that  small  community 
offered  too  limited  a  field  in  which  to  exercise  their  vocation,  I 
know  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  good  people  there  would 
not  have  enforced  their  laws  against  them.  How  should  they 
have  done  otherwise? 

Only  a  small  portion  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  however, 
had  any  active  participation  in  the  prosecutions,  and  many  made 
grave  objections  to  them. 

The  General  Court  appointed  a  special  court  for  the  trials ; 
and  one  at  least  of  the  judges  of  this  court,  and  several  of  the 
justices,  were  much  dissatisfied  with  the  proceedings.1  Of  the 
majority  of  the  judges  who  were  present,  it  may  be  said,  that 
they  had  the  belief  in  witchcraft,  which  that  most  eminent  and 
upright  judge,  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  entertained  as  firmly  as  they 
did ;  and  that  they  had  quite  as  much  evidence  as  was  intro 
duced  in  cases  before  him,  in  which  he  was  instrumental  in  pro 
curing  convictions,  on  which  he  gave  sentence  of  death,  with  a 
conscientious  belief  that  he  was  doing  good  service  to  God  and 
the  State.  He  seems  not  to  have  wavered  in  this  belief,  to  the 
day  of  his  death. 

It  has  been  suggested,  that  there  was  one  physician  in  Massa 
chusetts  who,  if  his  life  had  been  spared,  might,  either  by  his 
professional  skill  or  by  his  wise  counsels,  have  done  something 
to  prevent  or  stay  this  lamentable  delusion.  It  is  a  subject  of 
profound  regret  that  he  should  have  died  a  year  before  his  labors 
would  have  been  so  exceedingly  useful.  Those  who  were  living 
"  gave  countenance  and  currency  to  the  idea  of  witchcraft  in  the 
public  mind,  and  were  very  generally  in  the  habit,  when  a  patient 
did  not  do  well  under  their  prescriptions,  of  getting  rid  of  all  dif 
ficulty  by  saying  that  'an  evil  hand'  was  upon  him."'  Very 
convenient,  indeed ! 

Roman  Catholic  priests  and  Jesuits  were  forbidden  to  come 
within  the  jurisdiction. 

The  right  of  the  colonial  government  to  exclude  persons 
actually  settled  in  the  Colony,  existed  from  the  power  to  make 

1  Thomas  Brattle's  Letter,  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  1st  Series,  vol.  v.  p.  75.    Bentley's 
Description  of  Salem,  ib.,  vol.  vi.  p.  266. 

2  Upham's  Witchcraft  at  Salem  Village,  vol.  ii.  p.  361. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        415 

laws,  constitute  courts  and  magistrates,  and  punish  offences. 
Banishment  was  a  recognized  mode  of  punishment ;  and  this  was 
their  common  penalty  for  grave  offences  against  their  religious 
polity.  It  was  peculiarly  adapted  to  a  Commonwealth  which 
was  to  be  governed  on  religious  principles,  and  to  suppress  the 
promulgation  of  religious  doctrines  inimical  to  its  welfare.  The 
Puritans  desired  to  remove  the  disturbers  of  their  peace ;  and 
many,  if  not  most  of  these,  were  religious  controversialists. 

Difficulties,  which  ended  in  sentence  of  banishment,  for  offences 
against  their  religious  legislation,  arose  in  various  ways. 

You  will  not  be  shocked,  I  trust,  if  I  venture  the  supposition 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  whole  world  on  which  conscience  is 
so  sensitive,  or  by  which  it  is  so  grievously  violated,  as  the  com 
pulsory  payment  of  money  to  be  appropriated  towards  any  thing 
connected  with  religion. 

A  man  pays  taxes,  which  he  knows  will  be  appropriated  to 
the  support  of  an  unrighteous  war  for  the  acquisition  of  territory 
belonging  to  the  Indians,  or  to  some  weaker  nation  ;  for  wasteful 
expenditure  on  public  buildings,  or  corrupt  purchases  for  the 
benefit  of  contractors,  or  for  the  transportation  of  patent  medi 
cines  in  the  mail  under  the  franks  of  members  of  Congress, — 
he  shrugs  his  shoulders,  but  his  conscience  is  quiet.  Let  him 
understand,  however,  that  his  tax  is  appropriated  to  the  support 
of  a  minister  of  the  gospel,  who  preaches  some  doctrine  to  which 
he  does  not  assent,  —  be  the  difference  but 

"  the  division  of  the  twentieth  part 
Of  one  poor  scruple,  —  nay  if  the  scale  do  turn 
But  in  the  estimation  of  a  hair/' — 

his  conscience  immediately  takes  the  alarm,  and  he  becomes  the 
subject  of  persecution. 

The  Puritans  being  satisfied  with  the  mode  of  supporting 
ministers  by  a  tax,  which  we  have  seen  was  originally  adopted 
at  the  first  meeting  of  the  Court  of  Assistants  in  the  Colony, 
continued  it  by  subsequent  enactments.  All  inhabitants  were 
assessed,  proportionably  to  all  charges  in  Church  and  Com 
monwealth.  If  all  the  inhabitants  had  been  as  closely  united 
in  their  religious  sympathies  as  were  the  first  emigrants,  there 
could  have  been  no  objection  to  this,  at  least  none  of  a  con 
scientious  character.  But  this  was  impossible  in  the  nature 


416       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

of  things.  Other  emigrants  came,  with  different  tenets.  It 
was,  of  course,  impracticable  to  exclude  all  such,  however  great 
the  caution  might  have  been.  Change  of  opinion  must,  also, 
have  caused  more  or  less  of  dissent.  Difference  of  views  caused 
opposition  to  the  tax.  The  government  disclaimed  any  right  to 
interfere  with  the  consciences  of  men,  but  insisted  upon  obedi 
ence  to  the  law  as  a  civil  duty.  The  recusants  denied  the 
authority  of  the  magistracy  to  enforce  the  commands  of  the  first 
table,  and  made  speeches  against  it.  The  magistrates  alleged 
that  this  was  not  only  unsound  in  doctrine,  but  endangered  the 
authority  of  the  civil  State.  The  recusants  preached.  The 
magistrates  banished.  The  recusants  insisted  that  they  were 
persecuted  for  their  principles.  The  magistrates  averred  that 
they  were  punished  for  their  practices. 

Two  questions  may  arise  here.  First,  —  Whether  this  was  a 
tax  for  the  support  of  religious  doctrines,  or  one  for  the  support 
of  the  civil  State  through  the  agency  of  religious  teaching.  If 
the  first,  then,  by  its  enforced  collection,  conscience  was  violated. 
If  the  latter,  then,  by  a  refusal  of  payment,  a  rightful  civil  law 
was  defied.  Second, — Whether  the  speeches  which  were  made, 
were  the  dictates  of  conscience,  which  required  a  testimony  of 
that  character  against  the  enormities  of  the  law,  —  or  the  utter 
ances  of  the  mere  human  will,  determined  to  gratify  its  own  wil- 
fulness,  and,  if  possible,  to  retain  the  money  in  its  own  pocket. 

These  questions,  as  the  lawyers  would  say,  may  be  regarded 
as  exceedingly  nice,  —  questions  about  which  men  may  argue ; 
and,  like  the  village  schoolmaster,  "  e'en  though  vanquished," 
they  may  "  argue  still." 

As  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  can 

"  distinguish  and  divide 
A  hair,  'twixt  south  and  south-west  side/' 

I  must  leave  it  to  the  casuists  of  the  next  two  centuries  to  deter 
mine  whether  or  not  the  institutions  of  religion  may  be  such  a 
support  to  the  civil  State,  that  a  tax,  by  the  State,  to  sustain 
them,  can  be  regarded  as  a  mere  civil  regulation,  violating  no 
man's  conscience,  even  if  the  money  be  applied  to  the  main 
tenance  of  teachers  who  differ  from  him,  —  whether  or  not  the 
religious  doctrine  and  the  civil  support  may  be  regarded  as  so 
far  distinct,  that  the  civil  magistrate  may  tax  on  the  ground  of 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.        417 

the  civil  right,  and  the  party  pay  without  interference  with  the 
religious  right.  Whatever  opinions  may  be  entertained,  the 
Puritans,  I  think,  took,  substantially,  that  distinction,  and  their 
rule,  thus  stated,  survived  the  Colony,  lived  through  the  Province, 
was  incorporated  into  the  Constitution  of  1780,  withstood  the 
efforts  of  two  Constitutional  conventions  for  its  abrogation,  and 
yielded  at  last,  more  than  two  centuries  after  its  first  intro 
duction. 

It  is  a  matter  of  recent  history,  that  a  republic  founded  upon 
a  substratum  of  infidelity  has  but  a  short  existence.  The  dura 
tion  of  one  which  shall  disclaim  the  support  of  religious  teach 
ings,  and  rely  upon  the  intelligence  attendant  upon  universal 
suffrage,  and  the  purity  derived  from  a  universal  scramble  for 
office,  is  a  problem  which  has  not  yet  received  its  solution. 

But  to  leave  the  Puritans  here  would  not  be  doing  them  jus 
tice  on  this  subject.  They  have  been  charged  with  inconsistency, 
and  persecution,  in  reference  to  these  proceedings. 

Mr.  Benedict,  just  quoted,  says  further  of  the  original  order 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  ministers,  — 

"  From  these  resolutions  on  board  this  floating  vessel,  which  by  subse 
quent  acts  became  a  permanent  law,  subjecting  every  citizen,  whatever 
was  his  religious  belief,  to  support  the  ministry  of  the  established  church, 
and  to  pay  all  the  taxes  which  the  dominant  party  might  impose  for  their 
houses  of  worship,  their  ordinations,  and  all  their  ecclesiastical  affairs,  pro 
ceeded  the  great  mistake  of  the  Puritan  Fathers.  And  from  the  same 
incipient  measure  grew  all  the  unrighteous  tithes  and  taxes,  the  vex 
atious  and  ruinous  lawsuits,  the  imprisonment  and  stripes  of  the  multi 
tudes  who  refused  to  support  a  system  of  worship  which  they  did  not 
approve." 

After  other  remarks  of  a  similar  character,  he  adds,  p.  369,  — 

"  The  most  charitable  exposition  we  can  give  of  this  unpleasant  subject 
is,  that  good  men  with  bad  principles  were  led  astray ;  that  although  they 
were  driven  by  persecution  from  their  native  land,  and  here  intended  to 
form  an  asylum  for  the  oppressed  who  should  fly  to  them  for  shelter,  of 
every  nation  and  of  every  creed ;  yet  from  the  strength  of  habit,  and  the 
general  opinions  of  mankind,  in  that  age,  they  dare  not  leave  the  sacred 
cause  to  its  own  inherent  influence ;  and  the  spirit  of  the  times,  rather 
than  the  disposition  of  the  men,  hurried  them  forward  to  those  persecuting 
measures  which  have  fixed  an  indelible  stain  on  their  otherwise  fair 
name." 

27 


418       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Assuming  the  matter  to  be  one  involving  a  question  of  con 
science,  this  might  be  true,  if  they  intended  to  form  an  asylum 
for  persons  of  all  creeds,  to  come  and  promulgate  all  doctrines, 
even  to  denunciation  of  their  own  most  cherished  principles. 
But  the  fact  being  shown  to  be  just  the  reverse  of  all  this,  the 
allegation  of  persecution  fails,  along  with  that  of  inconsistency. 

A  man  persecutes  nobody,  by  defending  his  own  from  en 
croachment.  The  lands  within  their  chartered  limits  were  theirs. 
The  government  was  theirs.  The  faith  and  modes  of  worship 
were  theirs.  Under  their  grant  from  the  Council  at  Plymouth 
and  their  charter  from  the  Crown,  they  secured  to  themselves,  as 
we  have  seen,  substantially  a  fee-simple  in  their  lands,  which 
they  could  protect  against  all  encroachments.  They  endeavored 
to  secure  to  themselves,  also,  a  theologic  fee-simple,  so  to  speak, 
or  at  least  a  life-estate,  and  they  were  exceedingly  tenacious  of 
this,  and  more  sensitive  to  trespasses  upon  it  than  to'  trespasses 
upon  property,  in  the  proportion  that  the  concerns  of  religion 
held  a  higher  place  in  their  estimation  than  mere  temporal  affairs. 
There  was  little  temptation  to  commit  trespasses  upon  their  tem 
poral  fee.  But  there  were  other  zealots  besides  themselves,  who 
were  quite  desirous  of  becoming  tenants  in  common,  at  least, 
if  not  disseisors,  of  their  ecclesiastical  fee.  The  attempt  was 
promptly  met,  first  by  warning  off;  and  when  that  failed,  by  an 
ecclesiastical  action  of  trespass,  resulting  in  a  fine;  and  when  that 
failed,  by  a  process  of  ejectment,  called  a  sentence  of  banishment. 

It  would  be  but  upon  a  very  superficial  view  of  the  subject,  to 
say,  that  they  had  no  right  to  do  this,  and  that  it  was  inconsist 
ent  with  their  position  in  England.  The  Puritans  in  England, 
like  others  there  who  dissented,  were  mostly  natives  of  the  soil: 
they  had  natural  rights  there,  —  a  right  to  form  their  opinions 
upon  religious  subjects,  equally  with  all  other  inhabitants  of  that 
country;  an  equal  right  to  express  them  peaceably;  a  right 
to  adopt  their  creed  and  forms  of  worship,  according  to  the 
dictates  of  their  consciences  (even  if  the  government  might  tax 
them) ;  and  a  right  to  the  protection  and  support  of  the  govern 
ment,  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  rights  and  liberties.  That  was 
their  country,  their  home:  there  were  their  families,  and  their 
relatives,  friends,  all  their  associations.  They  had  no  other 
place  in  which  to  enjoy  their  rights.  Members  of  the  Church  of 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        419 

England  had  the  same  natural  rights,  and  no  more.  Other  dis 
senters  from  her  doctrines  had  the  same  rights,  and  no  less.  The 
Church  of  England,  claiming  to  be  established  by  law,  required 
conformity  to  her  creed  and  usages  and  forms,  in  matters  deemed 
by  others  essential  errors ;  and  hence  violation  of  conscience,  and 
persecution. 

It  was  open  to  all  who  might  be  able,  to  escape  from  this  per 
secution.  It  was  natural  that  those  who  attempted  it  should 
associate  for  the  purpose.  The  Puritans  did  so,  —  provided  for 
themselves  a  place  of  refuge  in  the  wilderness,  and  obtained  a 
charter  of  government.  This  was  emphatically  for  themselves 
and  those  who  sympathized  with  them,  and  not  for  others.  The 
creeds,  modes,  and  forms  of  others  who  dissented,  were  as  ob 
noxious  to  them  as  those  of  the  Hierarchy.  They  were  not 
required  by  any  principle  of  religion,  or  morals,  or  comity,  or 
benevolence,  to  provide  for  a  theologic  warfare  against  themselves 
and  their  cherished  opinions  on  the  western  shore  of  the  Atlantic; 
and  they  did  not  do  it.  They  did  not  profess  toleration.  Why 
should  they  ?  With  a  perfect  conviction  that  they  were  right, 
of  course  others  were  wrong.  And  error  was  fatal !  We  have 
as  little  of  toleration  at  the  present  time,  in  relation  to  some  other 
things,  and  with  less  excuse.  Others  who  came  were  bound  to 
respect  their  religious,  equally  with  their  civil,  institutions.  There 
was  no  persecution  in  their  attempt  to  maintain  them,  by  the 
exclusion  of  those  who  could  be  restrained  in  no  other  way. 
No  one  had  a  right  to  come  and  set  up  an  opposition,  and 
plead  "  conscience."  That  plea  was  open  to  a  general  demurrer. 
"  What  of  that ! "  You  have  no  right  to  bring  such  a  con 
science  here. 

I  submit  that  the  argument  is  unanswerable,  and  a  full  justifi 
cation  of  the  general  principle  upon  which  the  Puritans  acted. 
We  may  think  their  creed  too  narrow.  There  was,  doubtless, 
mistake,  anger,  error,  excess,  wrong,  in  individual  cases.  I  seek 
not  to  justify  such  things.  All  I  claim  is  a  vindication  of 
the  legal  and  moral  right  of  the  Puritan  Fathers  to  govern  their 
own  Commonwealth,  the  child  of  their  labors,  ot  their  prayers, 
of  their  hopes,  and  of  their  fears  also  ;  and  to  exclude  others,  who 
could  not  join  in  fellowship  with  them,  from  the  enjoyment  of 
their  privileges,  without  being  accused  of  persecution. 


420        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Whether  their  ecclesiastical  right  could  stand  on  this  founda 
tion  for  more  than  one  or  two  generations,  is  another  and  a  dif 
ferent  question.  It  would,  certainly,  not  be  a  very  long  period 
before  those  who  had  been  born  on  the  soil  would  have  as  great 
a  right  of  non-conformity  to  the  existing  state  of  things,  as  the 
Puritans  had  in  England,  and  upon  similar  grounds.  They  had, 
in  fact,  no  theologic  fee-simple,  and  could  not  transmit  an  inherit 
ance  in  any  exclusive  right.  They  had  nothing  more  than  a  life- 
estate,  in  this  respect. 

But  the  matter  was  not  suffered  to  develop  itself  in  that  way. 
The  theologic  trespassers  brought  it  to  a  more  direct  and  speedy 
issue. 

The  members  of  the  Church  of  England  seem  to  have  left  the 
Puritan  Fathers  in  the  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  their  rights. 
They  neither  sought  nor  were  involved  in  any  controversy  with 
them  here,  in  the  early  settlement,  unless  the  controversy  respect 
ing  the  charter  had  that  aspect. 

With  the  exception  of  the  Quakers,  the  Anabaptists  were  the 
most  prominent  in  this  religious  aggression. 

In  1639,  several  persons  were  fined  for  attempting  to  gather  a 
small  company  of  believers. 

A  law  for  the  banishment  of  Anabaptists  was  passed  in  1644, 
with  a  preamble  giving  them  a  very  bad  character.1 

"  The  heart-rending  sufferings  which  were  inflicted  on  John 
Clark,  Obadiah  Holmes,  and  others  "  (so  Benedict  characterizes 
the  affair),  in  1651,  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  spirit  of  the  times. 
Clark,  Holmes,  and  John  Crandall,  "  representatives  of  the  church 
at  Newport,"  Rhode  Island,  came  to  Lynn  and  held  a  meeting 
at  the  house  of  a  brother,  on  the  plea  that  he  was  too  old  to  go 
to  Newport.  Benedict  says,  "  The  circumstance  of  these  men 
being  representatives,  leads  us  to  infer  that  something  was  de 
signed  more  than  an  ordinary  visit."  Undoubtedly!  They  came 
to  do  what  they  knew  was  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  Massachu 
setts. —  The  constable  came,  as  might  have  been  (probably  was) 
expected,  broke  up  the  meeting,  arrested,  and  took  them  to  the 
ale-house,  or  ordinary,  and  being,  evidently,  a  man  zealous  in  the 
faith,  and  doubtless  supposing  that  the  meeting-house  was  a  more 
suitable  place  than  the  ale-house  for  such  people,  —  wishing  also, 
1  Mass.  Records,  vol.  ii.  p.  85. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       421 

probably,  that  they  should  hear  a  little  sound  doctrine,  —  he  pro 
posed,  at  dinner,  if  they  were  free,  to  take  them  to  the  meeting. 
They  replied,  "  We  are  in  thy  hand ;  and  if  thee  will  take  us  to 
the  meeting,  thither  will  we  go."  But  they  informed  him  further, 
"  If  thou  forcest  us  into  your  assembly,  then  shall  we  be  con 
strained  to  declare  ourselves,  that  we  cannot  hold  communion 
with  them."  The  zealous  constable  did  not  care  for  that,  and  so 
to  the  meeting  they  went.  Taking  off  their  hats  at  the  threshold, 
when  they  were  seated  they  put  them  on  again,  and  Clark  opened 
his  book  and  fell  to  reading.  The  constable,  by  order  of  a  magis 
trate,  took  off  their  hats.  When  the  preaching  and  praying  were 
over,  Clark,  as  a  stranger,  stood  up  and  desired  to  say  a  few  things 
to  the  congregation.  The  preacher  said,  we  will  have  no  objec 
tions  to  what  has  been  delivered.  But  Clark  must  explain  his 
gesture  of  dissent  (putting  on  his  hat) ;  and  the  explanation  being, 
substantially,  that  to  conjoin  and  act  with  .them  would  be  sin,  and 
that  he  could  not  judge  that  they  were  gathered  together  and 
walked  according  to  the  visible  order  of  the  Lord,  he  was  told  he 
had  said  and  done  that  which  he  must  answer  for,  and  was 
silenced.  Shortly  after,  they  were  tried ;  and,  according  to  the 
account,  his  defence  embarrassed  the  judges.  Clark  says, — 

"  At  length  the  Governor  stepped  up  and  told  us  we  had  denied  infant 
baptism,  and,  being  somewhat  transported,  told  me  I  had  deserved  death, 
and  said  he  would  not  have  such  trash  brought  into  their  jurisdiction ; 
moreover  he  said,  you  go  up  and  down  and  secretly  insinuate  into  those 
that  are  weak,  but  you  cannot  maintain  it  against  our  ministers.  You 
may  try  and  dispute  with  them." 

They  were  fined,  and  refusing  to  pay  were  imprisoned.  But 
Clark  caught  at  the  last  remark  of  the  Governor,  as  if  it  were  a 
challenge  to  a  debate,  and  the  next  morning  sent  a  formal  accept 
ance,  with  a  request  that  a  time  might  be  named ;  shrewdly  pre 
facing  it  with,  "  Whereas  it  pleased  this  honored  court  yesterday 
to  condemn  the  faith  and  order,  which  I  hold  and  practise,"  —  so 
that  the  dispute  might  be  upon  his  faith  and  order.  The  magis 
trates  were  not  to  be  caught  in  that  way,  but  inquired  whether 
he  would  dispute  upon  the  things  contained  in  his  sentence,  &c. 
"  For,"  said  they,  "  the  court  sentenced  you  not  for  your  judg 
ment  and  conscience,  but  for  matter  of  fact  and  practice."  Clark 
replied,  "  You  say  the  court  sentenced  me  for  matter  of  fact  and 


422        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

practice ;  be  it  so.  I  say  that  matter  of  fact  and  practice  was  but 
the  manifestation  of  my  judgment  and  conscience,  and  I  make 
account,  that  man  is  void  of  judgment  and  conscience,  that  hath 
not  a  fact  and  practice  suitable  thereunto." 

The  magistrates  saw,  doubtless,  that  the  debate  would  involve 
his  faith  and  his  conscience,  and,  if  allowed,  that  he  would  gain 
the  opportunity  which  he  desired,  of  promulgating  his  doctrines 
under  their  permission,  and  therefore  protection,  and  declined  to 
allow  it.  Clark's  friends  paid  his  fine,  and  he  was  discharged. 

But  Clark,  as  Benedict  says,  "  knowing  that  his  adversaries 
would  attribute  the  failure  of  it  [the  debate]  to  him,"  immedi 
ately  on  his  release  drew  up  an  address,  reciting,  that  through  the 
indulgency  of  tender-hearted  friends,  without  his  consent,  and 
contrary  to  his  judgment,  the  sentence  had  been  satisfied  and  a 
warrant  procured  by  which  he  was  secluded  the  place  of  his  im 
prisonment,  by  reason  whereof  he  saw  no  call  but  to  his  habita 
tion  ;  yet,  lest  the  cause  should  suffer,  he  signified  that  if  it  should 
please  the  magistrates,  or  the  General  Court,  to  grant  his  former 
request,  he  should  cheerfully  embrace  it,  and  come  from  the  island 
to  attend  to  it. 

The  magistrates  replied,  that  they  conceived  he  had  misrepre 
sented  the  Governor's  speech  in  saying  he  was  challenged  to 
dispute,  adding, — 

"Nevertheless,  if  you  are  forward  to  dispute,  and  that  you  will  move  it 
yourself  to  the  court  or  magistrates  about  Boston,  we  shall  take  order  to 
appoint  one  who  will  be  ready  to  answer  your  motion,  you  keeping  close 
to  the  questions  propounded  by  yourself;  and  a  moderator  shall  be  ap 
pointed  also  to  attend  upon  the  service ;  and  whereas  you  desire  you 
might  be  free  in  your  dispute,  keeping  close  to  the  points  to  be  disputed 
or  without  incurring  damage  by  the  civil  justice,  observing  what  hath 
been  before  written,  it  is  granted ;  the  day  may  be  agreed  if  you  yield 
the  premises." 

Clark  took  exception  to  the  answer,  and  repeated  his  former 
motion,  saying,  if  the  General  Court  should  accept  it,  and,  under 
the  secretary's  hand,  should  grant  a  free  dispute  without  moles 
tation  or  interruption,  he  should  be  well  satisfied.  Benedict 
says,  "  Mr.  Clark  all  along  kept  in  view  the  law  which  had  been 
made  seven  years  before,  which  threatened  so  terribly  any  one 
who  should  oppose  infant  baptism.  This  was  the  reason  of  his 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       423 

requesting  an  order  to  dispute  in  legal  form."  And  he  adds, 
"  Mr.  Clark,  therefore,  left  his  adversaries  in  triumph."  Again, 
"  So  completely  was  he  at  home  in  the  baptismal  controversy, 
that  he  was  evidently  as  desirous  for  the  public  discussion,  as 
his  opponents  were  to  avoid  it." 

Thus  it  was  that  Mr.  Clark  returned  to  his  habitation,  a  "  per 
secuted  "  man,  who  had  endured  "  heart-rending  sufferings."  l 
Judging  from  the  fact  that  he  came  willingly  and  knowingly ; 
that  he  was  nothing  loath  to  be  forced  to  go  to  a  meeting  where 
he  should  be  constrained  to  declare  his  dissent;  that  he  used 
the  trial  to  make  an  open  defence  of  his  doctrines ;  that  he 
was  so  anxious  to  debate  the  matter  afterwards  with  the  minis 
ters,  if  he  could  have  a  clear  field  without  danger  of  the  law ; 
and  that  he  finally  left  his  adversaries  in  triumph ;  —  it  is  at  least 
an  open  question,  whether  the  persecution  was  not  more  in  the 
avoidance  of  the  public  free  debate,  than  in  the  fine,  and  im 
prisonment  for  non-payment.  He  seems  in  all  this  to  have  had 
an  eye  to  the  things  temporal,  in  regard  to  his  controversy  with 
Mr.  Coddington,  perhaps  quite  as  much  as  to  things  spiritual.2 

Clark  carried  his  complaints  to  England;3  and  Sir  Richard 
Saltonstall  wrote  to  Cotton  and  Wilson,  the  ministers  at 
Boston,  — 

"  It  doth  not  a  little  grieve  my  spirit  to  hear  what  sad  things  are  re 
ported  daily  of  your  tyranny  and  persecutions  in  New  England,  as  that 
you  fine,  whip,  and  imprison  men  for  their  consciences.  First,  you  com 
pel  such  to  come  into  your  assemblies,  as  you  know  will  not  join  you  in 
your  worship ;  and  when  they  show  their  dislike  thereof,  or  witness 
against  it,  then  you  stir  up  your  magistrates  to  punish  them  for  such  (as 
you  conceive)  their  public  affronts.  .  .  .  We  pray  for  you,  and  wish  you 
prosperity  every  way ;  hoped  the  Lord  would  have  given  you  so  much 
light  and  love  there,  that  you  might  have  been  eyes  to  God's  people  here, 
and  not  to  practise  those  courses  in  a  wilderness,  which  you  went  so  far 
to  prevent.  These  rigid  ways  have  laid  you  very  low  in  the  hearts  of 
the  saints.  I  do  assure  you,  I  have  heard  them  pray  in  the  public  assem 
blies,  that  the  Lord  would  give  you  meek  and  humble  spirits,  not  to  strive 
so  much  for  uniformity,  as  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond  of 
peace." 

1  Benedict,  pp.  371-375 ;  Backups  Hist,  of  New  England,  vol.  i.  pp.  214-228. 

2  See  Palfrey,  Hist.  N.  E.,  vol.  ii.  p.  359. 

3  111  News  from  New  England,  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  4th  Series,  vol.  ii.  pp.  3,  27. 


424       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Mr.  Cotton,  answering  "  for  Brother  Wilson  and  self,"  said  of  Holmes, 
"  As  for  his  whipping,  it  was  more  voluntarily  chosen  by  him  than  in 
flicted  on  him.  His  censure  by  the  Court,  was,  to  have  paid,  as  I  know, 
£30,  or  else  be  whipt ;  his  fine  was  offered  to  be  paid  by  friends  for  him 
freely,  but  he  chose  rather  to  be  whipt ;  in  which  case,  if  his  suffering  of 
stripes  was  any  worship  of  God  at  all,  surely  it  could  be  accounted  no 
better  than  will-worship."  .  .  . 

To  the  other  paragraph  above  quoted,  he  replied,  "  You  know  not,  if 
you  think  we  came  into  this  wilderness  to  practise  those  courses  here, 
which  we  fled  from  in  England.  We  believe  there  is  a  vast  difference 
between  men's  inventions  and  God's  institutions ;  we  fled  from  men's  in 
ventions  to  which  we  else  should  have  been  compelled ;  we  compel  none 
to  men's  inventions.  If  our  ways  (rigid  ways  as  you  call  them)  have 
laid  us  low  in  the  hearts  of  God's  people,  yea,  and  of  the  saints  (as  you 
style  them),  we  do  not  believe  it  is  any  part  of  their  saintship.  Never 
theless,  I  tell  you  the  truth,  we  have  tolerated  in  our  churches  some 
Anabaptists,  some  Antinomians,  and  some  seekers,  and  do  so  still  at  this 
day.  We  are  far  from  arrogating  infallibility  of  judgment  to  ourselves,  or 
affecting  uniformity ;  uniformity  God  never  required,  infallibility  he 
never  granted  us." 1 

These  proceedings  serve  well  to  illustrate  not  only  the  religious 
legislation  and  civil  administration  of  that  period,  but  the  spirit 
and  temper  of  all  parties.  The  Bible  was  the  guide  of  the  Puri 
tans,  and  their  law.  Their  legislation  was  founded  upon  it.  Com 
pelling  men,  therefore,  to  conform  to  their  laws,  was  compelling 
them  to  conform,  not  to  men's  inventions,  but  to  God's  institu 
tions. 

The  proceedings  in  reference  to  the  "  Quakers  and  Ranters  " 
come  under  consideration,  as  a  part  of  the  religious  legislation 
of  the  Puritan  Commonwealth  ;  and  notwithstanding  the  matter 
has  been  discussed  with  great  ability  and  research  by  Dr.  Ellis, 
in  the  third  lecture  of  this  course,  it  may  be  proper  for  me,  as  it 
comes  also  within  the  scope  of  my  subject,  to  say  a  few  words 
upon  it,  instead  of  passing  it  by  with  a  mere  recognition. 

Polonius,  along  with  other  very  good  advice  to  his  son,  Laertes, 
counselled  him  to  — 

"  beware 

Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel :  but,  being  in, 
Bear't,  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee." 

1  See  the  letters  entire,  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  pp.  401-407. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       425 

The  people  of  Rhode  Island  happily  acted  upon  the  first  part 
of  this  maxim,  in  reference  to  the  Quakers  who  came  among 
tnem.  Had  the  Puritans  done  the  same,  it  is  probable  that  the 
nuisance  would  have  been  equally  harmless  in  Massachusetts. 
But  such  a  forbearance  would  have  been  wholly  at  variance  with 
their  principle  of  excluding  disturbers  of  their  peace,  and  with 
their  practice  of  rigidly  enforcing  their  laws.  They  entered,  there 
fore,  upon  the  quarrel  sought  to  be  fixed  upon  them,  with  an 
energy  that  made  it  apparent  they  were  not  unmindful  of  the 
principle  embodied  in  the  latter  part  of  Polonius's  advice. 

With  a  commendable  moderation  in  the  outset,  they  evinced 
a  rigid  determination  to  maintain  their  authority.  They  warned, 
they  sent  away,  they  fined,  they  whipped,  they  imprisoned,  and 
branded.  When  these  more  usual  punishments  failed,  ears  (not 
many  of  them)  were  cut  off.  This  cruel,  but  in  England,  at  that 
day,  not  very  unusual,  punishment  was  inefficient  also.  Then 
came  banishment,  with  a  condition  annexed,  that  a  return  with 
out  permission  was  on  pain  of  death.  And  when  all  else  was 
utterly  ineffectual,  the  penalty  of  death  was  inflicted. 

The  Federal  Commissioners  of  the  four  colonies  (Massachu 
setts,  Plymouth,  Connecticut,  and  New  Haven),  at  their  annual 
meeting  in  1656,  had  recommended  that  such  persons,  if  any 
come,  should  be  forthwith  secured  or  removed  out  of  all  the 
jurisdictions.  When,  two  years  afterwards,  it  was  found  that 
punishments  of  the  milder  character  were  of  no  avail,  the 
Federal  Commissioners  propounded  and  seriously  commended  to 
the  several  General  Courts  to  make  a  law  of  the  precise  char 
acter  of  that  under  which  Massachusetts  inflicted  the  extreme 
penalty.1  In  other  instances,  prior  to  this  time,  parties  had  been 
banished  with  a  like  condition,  and  there  had  been  no  instance 
of  a  violation  of  it.  So  it  was  believed  would  be  the  case  in  this 
instance.  But  here  was  a  different  class  of  offenders, —  fanatical, 
or  self-willed,  —  self-devoted  to  their  will.  We  may  call  it  con 
science,  but  it  was  conscience  as  defined  by  the  Indian,  "  Some 
thing  here  [laying  his  hand  on  his  breast],  which  says, '  I  won't.'  " 
We  may  call  it  insanity ;  but,  if  insanity,  it  was  of  the  same 
self-willed  character. 

1  Palfrey,  Hist,  of  New  England,  vol.  ii.  p.  469.  John  Winthrop,  of  Connecticut, 
attached  a  qualification  to  his  subscription. 


426        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  something  of  human  passion  may 
have  been  excited  in  the  magistrates  of  the  Colony  by  this  wanton 
contempt  of  their  right  and  their  authority.  But  mischief  arising 
from  mere  contempt,  —  still  less,  resentment  and  passion  conse 
quent  upon  such  contempt,  —  could  furnish  no  justification  for 
proceeding  to  the  last  extremity.  In  that  view  the  most  that 
could  be  said  in  extenuation  would  be,  that  there  was  a  success 
ful  courting  of  martyrdom  by  a  series  of  persistent  efforts,  and 
under  circumstances  which  rendered  it  next  to  impossible  for  the 
government  to  refuse  the  crown.  That  the  Quakers,  supposing 
them  to  be  sane,  richly  deserved  any  suitable  punishment  for  dis 
turbing  the  peace,  is  not  to  be  doubted. 

The  cry  of  persecution  of  the  Quakers  by  the  Puritans  has 
been  long  and  often  repeated.  It  is  within  a  few  days,  that  I 
saw,  in  a  notice  of  a  sombre  work,  entitled  "  New-England 
Tragedies,"  this  paragraph :  "  They  [the  Puritans]  persecuted  the 
Quakers  with  immense  zest  and  activity ;  but  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  Quakers  gave  great  provocation." 

Now  I  take  a  direct  issue  with  the  first  part  of  this  allegation, 
and  with  all  other  averments  that  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts 
persecuted  the  Quakers.  Let  us  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  not 
for  non-conformity  that  the  Quakers  were  prosecuted ;  and  let 
us  understand  the  significance  of  the  terms  we  use.  What  is 
persecution  ?  If  we  turn  to  the  great  work  of  our  late  learned 
and  most  worthy  associate,  Dr.  Worcester,  we  shall  find  a  satis 
factory  definition ;  and  tried  by  that  standard,  or  by  any  other 
entitled  to  regard,  I  maintain,  without  hesitation,  that  so  far  from 
the  Puritans  persecuting  the  Quakers,  it  was  the  Quakers  who 
persecuted  the  Puritans.  Pardon  me,  if  I  consider  this  some 
what  in  detail. 

There  was  no  pursuit  either  "  with  malignity  or  enmity  "  in 
the  proceedings  of  the  magistrates,  even  if  anger  occasioned  by 
such  persistent  annoyance  may  have  been  excited.  The  Puritans 
did  not  "  harass  "  the  Quakers  "  with  penalties."  The  Quakers 
harassed  the  Puritans,  and  the  Puritans  inflicted  penalties  for  the 
transgression  of  their  laws,  as  other  communities  inflict  penalties 
for  transgressions.  There  must  be  something  more  than  this  to 
constitute  persecution,  or  the  tenants  of  our  state  prisons  may 
cry  out,  persecution !  So  again,  it  was  not  the  Puritans  who 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       427 

"  afflicted,"  "  distressed,"  "  oppressed,"  and  "  vexed,"  the  Quakers, 
on  account  of  their  opinions ;  but  the  reverse  of  all  that. 

Wenlock  Christison,  the  last  person  upon  whom  sentence  of 
death  was  passed,  is  reported  by  Sewell,  in  his  History  of  the 
Quakers,  to  have  said  to  the  court,  "  If  ye  have  power  to 
take  my  life  from  me,  God  can  raise  up  the  same  principle  of 
life  in  ten  of  his  servants,  and  send  them  among  you  in  my 
room,  that  you  may  have  torment  upon  torment,  which  is  your 
portion ;  for  there  is  no  peace  to  the  wicked,  saith  my  God." 
That  states  the  truth  of  the  matter,  so  far  as  persecution  is  con 
cerned.  The  Puritans  had  no  peace,  but  "  torment  upon 
torment "  from  the  Quakers. 

The  only  reasonable  question  which  can  arise,  is,  Were  the 
Puritans  justified  in  the  infliction  of  the  extreme  penalties? 
That  the  Quakers  harassed,  afflicted,  distressed,  oppressed,  and 
vexed  them,  may  not  be  a  sufficient  justification  for  that. 

Was  there  danger  to  the  Puritan  Commonwealth,  —  danger 
of  its  overthrow,  —  danger  of  the  subversion  of  the  principles 
upon  which  it  was  founded  ?  Every  other  expedient  to  rid 
themselves  of  the  nuisance  had  been  tried  in  vain ;  and  this 
punishment  was  denounced  as  the  penalty  for  a  return  from 
banishment,  in  the  hope  and  expectation  that  its  terror  would  be 
effectual,  and  render  its  infliction  unnecessary. 

When  this  proved  otherwise ;  when  their  principles  were 
denounced,  their  authority  derided  and  defied,  their  peace  dis 
turbed,  and  they  were  dared  to  carry  into  execution  their 
own  decrees,  —  if  there  was  danger  to  their  institutions,  what 
course  ought. the  magistrates  to  have  adopted? 

The  Quakers  courted  death,  if  the  Puritans  dared  to  inflict  it. 
They  despised  and  rejected  the  mercy  which  would  have  saved 
them.  Assuming  that  they  were  sane,  however  much  we 
may  lament  the  occurrence,  why  should  we  waste  our  sym 
pathies  on  them,  if,  by  their  proceedings,  they  endangered  the 
Commonwealth  into  which  they  intruded  ?  It  is  said  now,  that 
they  were  more  fit  subjects  for  an  insane  hospital  than  for  any 
of  the  punishments  which  were  inflicted.  If  they  were  insane, 
we  cannot  hold  the  Puritans  responsible  because  we  have  dis 
covered  that  fact  two  centuries  afterwards.  There  was  no  such 
supposition  at  the  time,  neither  was  there  an  insane  hospital. 


428        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Great  odium  has  been  cast  upon  the  law  and  its  administra 
tion,  in  the  infliction  of  those  extreme  punishments,  and  upon 
the  clergy,  so  far  as  they  participated.  I  submit,  whether  the 
responsibility  is  not  chargeable  rather  upon  the  lamentable  state 
of  medical  science  at  that  time,  which,  while  busying  itself 
with  catnip  and  elecampane,  millipedes  and  powder  of  baked 
toads,  had  not  discovered  that  there  was  any  other  form  of 
mental  disease  than  that  which  manifested  itself  in  a  furious 
derangement.  How  should  lawgivers,  judges,  and  jurors,  or 
clergymen  even,  ascertain  the  fact  of  insanity,  —  a  matter  so 
foreign  to  their  ordinary  studies, —  when  the  studies  and  diag 
nosis  of  the  physician  failed  to  perceive  it.  Medical  science  at  a 
much  later  day,  under  the  lead  of  jurisprudence,  has  redeemed 
its  character.  The  medical  profession  having  left  the  investiga 
tion  of  the  virtues  of  baked  toad-powder  for  that  of  the  phe 
nomena  of  mental  disease,  the  law  seeks  information  on  that 
subject,  in  aid  of  its  administration. 

Medical  testimony  is  heard  on  the  question,  sane  or  insane  ? 
Medical  experts  give  their  opinions,  and  the  interests  of 
humanity  are  subserved,  and  the  cause  of  justice  often  pro 
moted;  though  it  must  be  acknowledged,  that  the  notion  of 
mental  derangement  is  carried  to  an  extreme,  when  a  jury  finds 
a  defendant  sane  the  moment  immediately  before,  and  sane 
again  the  moment  immediately  following,  the  commission  of  a 
very  deliberate  homicide,  but  insane  at  the  precise  moment 
when  the  deed  was  committed.  I  admit  that  the  Bench  deserves 
censure,  when  it  fails  to  rebuke  such  a  perversion  of  principles. 
But  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  too  much  from  a  judi 
ciary  elected  by  a  popular  vote,  and  whose  tenure  of  office  is  for 
a  short  term  of  years. 

Upon  the  question  whether  their  institutions  were  endangered 
by  the  Quakers,  the  Puritans  are  entitled  to  be  heard. 

In  a  humble  petition  and  address  of  the  General  Court,  pre 
sented  to  the  King  in  February,  1660,  it  is,  among  other  things, 
said, — 

"  Concerning  the  Quakers,  open,  capital  blasphemers,  open  seducers 
from  the  Glorious  Trinity,  the  Lord's  Christ,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  &c., 
the  blessed  Gospel,  and  from  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  the  rule  of  life, 
open  enemies  to  government  itself  as  established  in  the  hands  of  any 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       429 

but  men  of  their  own  principles,  malignant  and  assiduous  promoters  of 
doctrines  directly  tending  to  sub-vert  both  our  churches  and  state  ;  after 
all  other  means,  for  a  long  time  used  in  vain,  we  were  at  last  constrained, 
for  our  own  safety,  to  pass  a  sentence  of  banishment  against  them,  upon 
pain  of  death.  Such  was  their  dangerous,  impetuous,  and  desperate 
turbulency,  both  to  religion  and  to  the  state,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  as 
that,  how  unwilling  soever,  could  it  have  been  avoided,  the  magistrate  at 
last,  in  conscience  both  to  God  and  man,  judged  himself  called,  for  the 
defence  of  all,  to  keep  the  passage  with  the  point  of  the  sword  held 
toward  them.  This  could  do  no  harm  to  him  that  would  be  warned 
thereby ;  their  wittingly  rushing  themselves  thereupon  was  their  own  act, 
and  we,  with  all  humility,  conceive  a  crime  bringing  their  bloods  upon 
their  own  head." 1 

Assuming  this  representation  to  be  true,  the  colonists  must 
stand  excused. 

Dr.  Palfrey  says,  —  "  Imprudently  calculating  on  the  effect  of  their 
threats,  the  Court  had  .placed  themselves  in  a  position  which  they  could 
not  maintain  without  grievous  severity,  nor  abandon  without  humiliation 
and  danger.  For  a  little  time  there  seemed  reason  to  hope  that  the  law 
would  do  its  office  without  harm  to  any  one." 

Again, — "  Whether  or  not  their  imaginations  had  exaggerated  the 
original  danger,  it  could  no  longer,  after  an  experiment  of  more  than  three 
years,  be  justly  considered  great." 

And  again,  —  "  But  among  the  colonies  of  New  England,  it  is  the  unhappy 
distinction  of  the  chartered  — :  and  therefore  at  once  more  self-confident  and 
more  endangered  —  colony  of  Massachusetts,  to  have  been  the  only  one 
in  which  Quakers  who  refused  to  absent  themselves  were  condemned  to 
die.  Her  right  to  her  territory  was  absolute,  deplorable  as  was  the 
extreme  assertion  of  it.  No  householder  has  a  more  unqualified  title  to 
declare  who  shall  have  the  shelter  of  his  roof,  than  had  the  Governor 
and  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay  to  decide  who  should  be  sojourners 
or  visitors  within  their  precincts.  Their  danger  was  real,  though  the 
experiment  proved  it  to  be  far  less  than  was  at  first  supposed.  The 
provocations  which  were  offered  were  exceedingly  offensive.  It  is  hard 
to  say  what  should  have  been  done  with  disturbers  so  unmanageable. 
But  that  one  thing  should  not  have  been  done  till  they  had  become  more 
mischievous,  is  plain  enough.  They  should  not  have  been  put  to  death. 
Sooner  than  put  them  to  death,  it  were  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  the 
annoyed  dwellers  in  Massachusetts  had  opened  their  hospitable  drawing- 

1  Mass.  Records,  vol.  ir.  part  i.  p.  451. 


430        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

rooms    to    naked  women,   and   suffered    their   ministers    to   ascend  the 
pulpits  by  steps  paved  with  fragments  of  glass  bottles." 1 

But  if  the  danger  of  the  civil  Commonwealth  was  not  extreme, 
that  of  the  religious  government  connected  with  it  was  im 
minent.  If  the  Quakers  might  contravene  and  defy  the  laws 
which  protected  the  religious  institutions  and  worship  of  the 
Puritans,  all  others  might  do  the  same.  Their  peculiar  religious 
government  was  thus  in  extreme  peril.  With  regard  to  that, 
the  controversy  was  preservation  or  destruction  ;  and  the  result 
was  the  latter. 

The  infliction  of  the  punishment  of  death  did  not  avail  The 
Quakers  had  an  indomitable  perseverance,  and  much  encourage 
ment  to  continue  the  contest.  The  law  inflicting  this  penalty 
had  passed  but  by  a  majority  of  one.  There  was  much  opposi 
tion  to  its  execution.  The  military  guard  shows  the  fear  which 
existed  of  an  outbreak.  The  opposition  was  such  that  the  gov 
ernment  gave  up  any  farther  attempt  to  execute  the  extreme 
penalties.  The  Quakers  came  in  greater  numbers,  and  com 
mitted  greater  extravagancies.  The  government  mitigated  the 
penalties,  and  finally  submitted  to  the  intrusion.  The  Quakers 
triumphed;  —  and  the  experiment  of  the  Puritans,  —  the  theo- 
logic  freehold,  —  the  Commonwealth  which  was  to  exclude  un 
sound  doctrine  and  practice,  —  failed  then  and  there,  —  and,  so 
far  as  we  can  perceive,  from  that  time  forth,  for  evermore. 

The  civil  government  did  not  fail,  the  religion  did  not  fail ; 
but  the  principle  of  the  legal  exclusion  of  error  received  a  fatal 
blow. 

The  failure  was  not  merely  because  the  Quakers  had  con 
quered,  but  by  reason  of  the  causes  through  which  they  had 
conquered. 

I  quote  from  Dr.  Palfrey  once  more,  p.  482,  — 

"  It  was  settled  that  the  Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay 
were  not  to  have  the  disposal  of  their  home.  They  had  bought  it,  and 
paid  dear  for  it.  They  had  on  their  side  that  sort  of  rigid  justice  which 
accredited  writers  recognize,  when  they  lay  down  the  rule  that  a  perfect 
right  may  be  maintained  at  any  cost  to  the  invader.  But  trespassers  had 
come  who  would  not  be  kept  away,  except  by  violent  measures,  which  had 

1  Palfrey's  New  England,  vol.  ii.  pp.  474,  476,  484. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       431 

produced  only  a  partial  effect,  and  which  the  invaded  could  not  prevail 
upon  themselves  any  longer  to  employ.  The  feeling  of  humanity,  which 
all  along  had  pleaded  for  a  surrender,  at  length  uttered  itself  in  overpower 
ing  tones." 

And  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  in  his  "  Brief  Narration  of  the 
Original  Undertakings  of  the  Advancement  of  Plantations  into 
the  Parts  of  America,"  published  in  1658,  speaking  of  the  char 
ter,  says, — 

"  By  the  authority  whereof  the  undertakers  proceeded  so  effectually,  that 
in  a  very  short  time  numbers  of  people  of  all  sorts  flocked  thither  in  heaps, 
that  at  last  it  was  specially  ordered  by  the  King's  command,  that  none 
should  be  suffered  to  go  without  license  first  had  and  obtained,  and  they 
to  take  the  oaths  of  supremacy  and  allegiance.  So  that  what  I  long  be 
fore  prophesied,  when  I  could  hardly  get  any  for  money  to  reside  there, 
was  now  brought  to  pass  in  a  high  measure.  The  reason  of  that  restraint 
was  grounded  upon  the  several  complaints,  that  came  out  of  those 
parts,  of  the  divers  sects  and  schisms  that  were  amongst  them,  all  con 
temning  the  public  government  of  the  ecclesiastical  state.  And  it  was 
doubted  that  they  would,  in  short  time,  wholly  shake  off  the  royal  juris 
diction  of  the  Sovereign  Magistrate."  * 

We  can  see  now  that  it  was  impossible  that  their  peculiar  re 
ligious  institutions,  —  "  God's  institutions,"  as  Mr.  Cotton  called 
them,  —  should  be  maintained  for  a  long  period  against  the  influx 
of  population  "  contemning  the  public  government  of  the  eccle 
siastical  state"  here:  we  can  see  that  it  would  have  been  better, 
(to  use  a  common  form  of  speech^  infinitely  better,  had  they  vol 
untarily  yielded  to  the  pressure,  at  an  earlier  day,  and  quietly 
submitted  to  a  modification  of  their  religious  establishment,  giving 
greater  liberty  for  dissent,  and  more  tolerance  to  opposition.  The 
civil  state  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  in  danger  of  over 
throw.  It  may  not  have  been  wise,. it  may  not  have  evinced 
sound  statesmanship,  for  them  to  attempt  to  maintain  their 
experiment  against  the  intrusion  of  the  Quakers,  considering  the 
opposition  which  was  made  to  it. 

If,  under  the  existing  circumstances,  they  saw  the  impending 
inevitable  consequences,  they  cannot  be  held  excused  in  sacrificing 
life  to  the  end  that  their  church  polity  might  be  vigorously  en 
forced  for  a  little  time,  only  to  be  overthrown  within  a  short 

l  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  3d  Series,  rol.  vi.  p.  80. 


432       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

period.  Anger  and  passion,  under  great  provocation,  can  afford 
at  best  but  palliation. 

But,  assuming  that  there  was  no  danger  to  their  civil  govern 
ment,  the  principle  which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  their  whole 
government,  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  —  the  principle  of 
excluding  what  they  deemed  fundamental  error  in  religion  by  the 
civil  arm,  —  was  on  trial ;  and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  might 
well  believe,  and  did  believe,  that  God's  institutions  committed 
to  their  charge  could  be  sustained,  error  excluded,  their  peace 
preserved,  and  their  peculiar  Commonwealth  maintained,  by  the 
rigid  enforcement  of  their  laws,  even  unto  death,  the  danger 
which  menaced  their  institutions  from  the  proceedings  of  the 
Quakers  must  hold  them  excused.  On  what  authority  shall  we 
pronounce  that  they  must  have  seen  the  first,  and  could  not  have 
acted  upon  the  last,  of  these  propositions  ? 

Their  Commonwealth  was  one  of  small  beginnings.  If  it 
could  have  been  kept  a  small  Commonwealth,  —  distinct  and 
independent,  its  religious  legislation  enforced  as  it  might  have 
been  under  such  circumstances,  —  it  would,  doubtless,  have  pre 
served  its  original  constitution  much  longer;  and  with  their 
knowledge  of  the  mutability  of  human  affairs,  they  could  not 
have  anticipated  that  it  was  to  endure  for  all  generations.  They 
were  authorized  originally,  by  the  circumstances  to  which  I  have 
referred,  to  anticipate  for  it  a  reasonable  duration,  and  they  were 
men  who  could  commit  to  God's  providence  the  ordering  of  the 
future.  The  extract  from  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges'  "  Brief  Narra 
tion  "  shows  that  they  did  not  anticipate  that  the  example  of  their 
emigration  would  be  followed  by  such  a  numerous  company  of 
men,  who,  of  divers  sects  and  with  divers  schisms,  "  contemning 
the  public  government  of  the  ecclesiastical  state,  "  claimed  liberty, 
not  so  much  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their 
consciences,  as  liberty  not  to  worship  Him  at  all. 

There  is  a  grave  question,  I  think,  not  as  yet  sufficiently  con 
sidered,  how  far  writers  of  fiction,  whether  of  prose  or  poetry, 
are  at  liberty  to  represent  historical  personages  otherwise  than  on 
the  basis  of  historical  truth. 

If  the  fiction  be  like  Irving's  Knickerbocker's  New  York,  —  a 
burlesque  so  transparent  that  no  one  is  for  a  moment  misled,  — 
there  is  no  harm  done.  But  if  the  tale  or  poem  be  of  that 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       433 

character  that  no  one  but  an  expert  in  history  can  distinguish 
between  the  true  and  the  false,  the  fact  and  the  fiction,  very 
serious  injury  may  be,  in  many  instances  will  be,  done  to  the 
reputation  of  those  who  have  bequeathed  that  reputation  to 
posterity,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  be  preserved  untarnished. 
More  especially  is  this  true,  if,  the  prologue  says,  — 

"  the  author  seeks  and  strives 
To  represent  the  dead  as  in  their  lives." 

It  is  well  for  the  author  of  the  "  New-England  Tragedies " 
that  the  Puritan  laws  are  no  longer  in  force,  else  he  might  be 
called  to  answer,  not  only  for  that  he  did  — 

"  perchance  misdate  the  day  and  year, 
And  group  events  together  by  his  art, 
That  in  the  Chronicles  lie  far  apart," 

but  that  he  did,  moreover,  interpolate  matter  which  had 
neither  day,  nor  year,  nor  chronicle,  in  point  of  fact,  thereby 
giving  false  impressions  respecting  the  truth  of  history. 

The  relation  of  events  in  their  order  is  one  of  the  first  of  the 
requisites  of  history.  Not  only  the  year,  but  sometimes  the  very 
day  in  which  a  thing  is  done,  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  a 
right  understanding 'of  the  character  of  men,  and  of  their  acts 
also. 

It  is  not  an  immaterial  matter,  whether  the  Puritans  forbore, 
at  last,  to  proceed  capitally  against  the  Quakers  from  their  own 
conviction  that  such  a  course  would  cause  a  great  sacrifice  of 
life,  and  would  finally  fail  of  accomplishing  their  object;  or 
whether,  thirsting  for  blood  still,  they  were  stopped  by  a  "  man 
damus"  from  Charles  II.,  —  who,  by  the  way,  had  no  power 
to  issue  such  a  judicial  writ,  even  if  he  might  amend  the 
charter. 

It  may  not  be  amiss,  therefore,  to  state,  that  the  last  exe 
cution,  that  of  William  Leddra,  took  place  March  14,  1661 ;  that 
"Wenlock  Christison,  or,  as  the  record  has  it,  Wendlock  Christo- 
pherson,  who  had  been  banished  and  threatened  with  death  if  he 
should  return,  confronting,  the  judges  on  Leddra's  trial  with,  "  I 
am  come  here  to  warn  you,  that  you  shed  no  more  innocent 
blood,"  was  arrested,  and,  after  three  months,  brought  up  for 
trial.  Dr.  Palfrey  says, — 

28 


434        CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

"  There  was  an  unprecedented  division  among  the  magistrates,  and 
they  are  said  to  have  been  no  less  than  two  weeks  in  debate."  —  "  Chris- 
tison  was  condemned  to  die ;  but  the  dreadful  sentence  could  not  again  be 
executed.  In  the  mean  time,  the  General  Court  had  met ;  and  the  evi 
dences  of  opposition  to  any  further  pursuance  of  this  rigorous  policy  were 
unmistakable.  The  contest  of  will  was  at  an  end.  The  trial  that  was 
to  decide  which  party  would  hold  out  longest,  had  been  made ;  and  the 
Quakers  had  conquered."  1 

It  may  be  proper  for  me  to  add,  that  Christison,  concluding 
that,  if  he  might  have  his  liberty,  he  had  freedom  to  depart,  was 
discharged  from  prison  in  June,  1661 ;  that  King  Charles's  letter, 
directing  "  that,  if  there  were  any  of  those  people  called  Quakers 
amongst  them,  now  already  condemned  to  suffer  death  or  other 
corporal  punishment,  or  that  were  imprisoned  and  obnoxious  to 
the  like  condemnation,  they  were  to  forbear  to  proceed  any 
further  therein,"  and  should  send  such  persons  to  England  for 
trial,  was  dated  Sept.  9th,  of  that  year,  and  received  in  Novem 
ber.  Dr.  Palfrey  says  further  :  — 

"The  command,  however,  produced  little  effect.  The  resolution  to 
abstain  from  further  capital  punishments  had  been  taken  some  months 
before  ;  though  the  magistrates  perhaps  were  not  indisposed  to  appeal  to 
the  King's  injunction,  rather  than  avow  a  change  of  judgment  on  their 
own  part."2 

And  it  is  of  some  importance  to  know  farther,  that,  after  a 
representation  from  the  government  of  the  colony  to  the  King 
on  this  subject,  his  Majesty,  in  a  letter  dated  June  28th,  1662, 
after  saying,  that  "  the  end  and  foundation  of  the  charter  was 
and  is  the  freedom  and  liberty  of  conscience,"  and  charging  and 
requiring  that  freedom  and  liberty  be  duly  admitted  and  allowed, 
so  that  the  "  Book  of  Common  Prayer  "  might  be  used,  and  all 
persons  of  good  and  honest  lives  and  conversations  be  admitted 
to  the  sacraments  and  their  children  to  baptism,  adds,  — 

"  We  cannot  be  understood  hereby  to  direct  or  wish  that  any  indul 
gence  should  be  granted  to  those  persons  commonly  called  Quakers, 
whose  being  A  inconsistent  with  any  kind  of  government.  We  have 
found  it  necessary,  by  the  advice  of  our  Parliament  here,  to  make  sharp 
laws  against  them,  and  are  well  contented  that  you  do  the  like  there." 

l  Palfrey,  vol.  ii.  p.  481.  2  Palfrey,  vol.  ii.  pp.  619,  620. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       435 

This  is  the  King's  final  judgment  on  the  matter.1 
A  few  days  since,  a  leading  newspaper  in  a  neighboring  State 
appended  to  a  courteous  notice  of  this  course  of  Lectures,  a  very 
uncourteous  paragraph  respecting  the  founders  of  Massachusetts, 
saying,  that  — 

"  They  were  simply  a  band  of  narrow-minded  sectaries,  animated  by  no 
broad  nor  generous  motives ;  but  aiming  to  establish  a  morose  and  ex 
clusive  community,  from  which  every  one  of  broader  sympathy  and  more 
tolerant  spirit  should  be  rigorously  shut  out." 

And  then,  naming  three  of  the  principal  men  among  them,  it 
was  said,  — 

"  that,  so  far  from  being  the  promoters  of  a  great  movement,  they  prove, 
on  examination,  of  very  moderate  calibre.  They  were  designed  for 
village  deacons,  rather  than  for  founders  of  states." 

One  cannot,  and  has  no  disposition  to,  repress  a  smile  at  lan 
guage  like  this. 

It  is  neither  jny  duty  nor  my  privilege,  at  this  time,  to  enter 
into  a  discussion  respecting  the  statesmanship  of  the  founders 
of  Massachusetts.  But  it  lies  within  my  province  to  say  here 
and  now,  that,  but  for  the  religious  legislation  of  the  founders 
of  Massachusetts,  many  persons  would  have  come  here,  who, 
like  some  of  those  who  went  to  Rhode  Island,  were  not  fit  for 
village  deacons,  nor  for  any  other  honest  and  honorable  posi 
tion. 

A  clerical  friend  of  mine,  in  a  sermon  last  Thanksgiving  Day, 
referring  to  the  Puritan  Commonwealth  and  the  disturbances 
by  Roger  Williams  and  others,  happily  remarked,  that  "  every 
Utopia  ought  to  be  supplemented  with  a  Narragansett." 

Their  experiment  of  founding  and  maintaining  a  civil  state 
upon  a  basis  which  should  support  the  worship  of  God  according 
to  the  dictates  of  their  conscientious  convictions  of  duty,  and  an 
ecclesiastical  state  combined  which  should  be  in  harmony  with 
it,  and  of  excluding  whatever  was  antagonistic  to  its  welfare, 
failed  in  its  exclusiveness ;  but  the  change  was  only  in  the 
admission  of  the  element  of  a  more  extended  liberty  of  con 
science;  and  of  what  is  dignified  by  that  name  without  its 

1  Mass.  Records,  vol.  iv.  part  ii.  p.  165 ;  Hutch.  Coll.  Papers,  p.  379. 


436       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

vitality ;  with  greater  liberty  also  of  action.  Their  failure  was 
partial  only  ;  their  success,  great  and  enduring. 

With  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  its  true  principles,  they 
laid  here  the  foundation  of  civil  liberty  upheld  by  law  and 
restrained  by  law,  and  of  a  system  of  impartial  justice. 

In  the  "  Body  of  the  Liberties,"  enacted  in  1641,  is  a  prefa 
tory  declaration,  that  — 

"  We  do,  therefore,  this  day,  religiously  and  unanimously,  decree  and 
confirm  these  following  Rights,  liberties,  and  privileges,  concerning  our 
Churches,  and  Civil  State,  to  be  respectively,  impartially,  and  inviolably 
enjoyed  and  observed  throughout  our  jurisdiction  for  ever." 

The  first  and  second  declarations  following  this,  are,  of  them 
selves,  a  Massachusetts  Magna  Charta. 

"  1.  No  man's  life  shall  be  taken  away,  no  man's  honor  or  good  name 
shall  be  stained,  no  man's  person  shall  be  arrested,  restrained,  banished, 
dismembered,  nor  any  ways  punished,  no  man  shall  be  deprived  of  his 
wife  or  children,  no  man's  goods  or  estate  shall  be  taken  away  from  him, 
nor  any  way  indamaged  under  color  of  law  or  Countenance  of  Authority, 
unless  it  be  by  virtue  or  equity  of  some  express  law  of  the  Country  war 
ranting  the  same,  established  by  a  General  Court  and  sufficiently  published, 
or  in  case  of  the  defect  of  a  law  in  any  particular  case,  by  the  word  of 
God.  And  in  Capital  cases,  or  in  cases  concerning  dismembering  or 
banishment  according  to  that  word  to  be  judged  by  the  General  Court." 

"  2.  Every  person  within  this  jurisdiction,  whether  Inhabitant  or 
foreigner,  shall  enjoy  the  same  justice  and  law  that  is  general  for  the 
plantation,  which  we  constitute  and  execute  one  towards  another,  without 
partiality  or  delay."  * 

The  main  principle  of  these  declarations  is  recognized  in  the 
constitutions  of  the  States,  and  of  the  United  States.  If  it  shall 
be  abandoned,  and  the  theory  substituted  that  the  general  govern 
ment  is  to  be  administered  according  to  the  will  of  the  people, 
as  ascertained,  from  time  to  time,  by  the  action  of  Congress,  civil 
liberty  in  the  United  States  will  receive  a  shock,  from  which  it 
will  never  recover  under  that  government. 

With  a  profound  conviction  of  the  truth  and  of  the  vital  im 
portance  of  their  religious  principles,  they  achieved  and  secured 
to  themselves  liberty  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates 

i  Mass.  Hist.  Society's  Coll.  3d  Series,  vol.  viii.  p.  216. 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.       437 

of  their  consciences.  They  disclaimed  again  and  again  power 
over  the  faith  and  consciences  of  others.  If  they  were  perti 
nacious  in  their  determination  that  those  who  could  not  join  at 
least  in  attendance  upon  their  religions  worship,  and  especially 
that  those  who  placed  themselves  in  hostility  to  their  principles 
and  practice,  should  find  their  liberty  elsewhere,  —  their  efforts 
to  secure  liberty  for  themselves  have  resulted  in  a  larger  liberty  to 
all  othe-rs. 

With  the  rod  of  a  persevering  industry,  they  smote  the  rock 
of  Massachusetts,  literally  lying  in  the  wilderness;  and  if  the 
elements  of  prosperity  existing  within  did  not  gush  forth  in  im 
mediate  profusion,  they  have  since  flowed  in  copious  streams  to 
sustain  and  enrich  their  descendants. 

Let  not  the  conclusion  that  the  Puritans  founded  their  State 
in  order  that  they  might  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates 
of  their  own  consciences,  without  admitting  others  to  disturb 
their  worship  by  contention  about  doctrines  and  ordinances,  de 
tract  from  the  high  estimation  in  which  they  have  been  held, 
heretofore. 

Let  us  not  even  presume  to  believe  that  they  would  have 
effected  a  better  work,  had  they  attempted  to  provide  entire 
liberty  for  what  every  man,  woman,  and  child  deemed  the  dictates 
of  their  several  consciences. 

We  are  not  authorized  to  say  that  it  would  have  been  better 
if  they  had  founded  a  colony  on  the  shores  of  Massachusetts, 
with  what  we  call  liberty  of  conscience,  —  liberty  for  every  one 
not  only  to  think  as  he  pleases,  which  the  Puritans  allowed, 
but  liberty  for  every  one  to  preach,  and  harangue,  and  vituperate, 
and  denounce  every  other  one  who  differs  and  dissents  from  his 
or  her  particular  notion,  —  liberty  to  women  to  hold  conventions, 
and  make  pretty  invectives  against  government,  and  liberty  to 
others  to  denounce  the  Constitution  which  is,  or  should  be,  the 
organic  law.  All  this  is  supposed  to  be  safe  for  us.  Would  it 
have  been  safe  for  them  ?  On  what  premises  shall  we  maintain 
such  a  position  ?  Nay,  upon  what  data  shall  we  persuade  our 
selves  that,  forming  their  infant  settlement  upon  such  a  foun 
dation,  their  Patmos  would  not  have  been  turned  into  a  Pan 
demonium, —  that  their  experiment  would  not  have  proved  a 
disastrous  failure  in  its  very  inception  ? 


438       CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Above  all,  let  us  not  stultify  ourselves  by  the  superlative 
folly  of  regarding  the  Puritans  as  "a  band  of  narrow-minded 
sectaries,  animated  by  no  broad  nor  generous  motives,"  who 
aimed  "  to  establish  a  morose  and  exclusive  community,  from 
which  every  one  of  broader  sympathy  and  more  tolerant  spirit 
should  be  rigorously  shut  out."  Exclusion  of  the  promoters  of 
contention  is  not  the  exclusion  of  persons  of  the  broadest  sym 
pathy  and  the  widest  toleration. 

Let  us  have  a  correct  understanding  of  what  the  Puritans  were 
in  their  day,  which  will  lead  us  to  very  different  conclusions. 

They  were  non-conformists.  It  was  their  non-conformity, 
religious  and  civil,  which  brought  them  hither,  to  establish  the 
principles  of  their  non-conformity,  in  a  colony  to  be  based  on  the 
very  foundations  of  their  non-conformity. 

Thirty  years  after  the  death  of  John  Wycliffe,  the  Council  of 
Constance  condemned  his  opinions  and  writings;  and  decreed 
that  his  memory  should  be  pronounced  infamous,  and  that  his 
bones,  if  to  be  distinguished  from  those  of  the  faithful,  should  be 
removed  from  the  consecrated  ground,  and  cast  upon  a  dunghill. 
Thirteen  years  subsequently,  in  pursuance  of  this  sentence,  his 
remains  were  taken  from  their  place  and  burned ;  and  the  ashes 
were  cast  into  the  Swift,  a  brook  which  empties  itself  into  the 
Avon. 

"  The  Avon  to  the  Severn  runs, 
The  Severn  to  the  sea, 
And  Wycliffe's  dust  shall  spread  abroad, 
Wide  as  the  waters  be." 

Many  of  you  recollect  those  beautiful  lines.  You  know  who 
repeated  them,  with  a  reference  to  the  blood  of  Kossuth,  if  it 
should  be  shed  by  the  Emperor  of  Russia. 

Who  was  John  Wycliffe  ?  A  non-conformist,  —  "  The  morning 
star  of  the  Reformation,"  -  -  the  original  and  type  of  the  non 
conformists  who,  denying  the  supremacy  of  King  and  bishops, 
as  he  denied  that  of  the  Pope,  kindled  the  spark  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty  in  England ;  who  cherished  and  fostered  it  in 
the  wilderness,  until,  increasing  and  extending  its  beneficent 
warmth,  it  shot  forth  such  a  light,  that  the  fires  of  persecution 
paled  before  its  radiance. 

Sneers  about  village  deacons  cannot  tarnish  the  reputation  of 


CHARTER  AND  RELIGIOUS  LEGISLATION  OP  MASSACHUSETTS.        439 

such  men.  Detractors  may  think  to  cast  their  dust  upon  the 
waters ;  but,  like  that  of  WyclifFe,  it  "  shall  spread  abroad,  wide 
as  the  waters  be." 

If  the  liberty  which  they  claimed  and  secured,  was,  in  their 
day,  confined  in  a  great  measure  to  themselves  and  their  institu 
tions;  after  generations  have  had  the  benefit  of  an  expansion 
of  its  principles  into  a  more  extended  freedom. 

We  may  reject  their  creed.  We  may  regret  their  austerity. 
But  they  will  live  in  history,  as  they  have  lived,  the  very  embodi 
ment  of  a  noble  devotion  to  the  principles  which  induced  them 
to  establish  a  colony,  to  be  "  so  religiously,  peaceably,  and  civilly 
governed,"  as  thereby  to  incite  the  very  heathen  to  embrace  the 
principles  of  Christianity. 


PURITAN    POLITICS 


ENGLAND    AND    NEW    ENGLAND. 


BY    EDWARD    E.    HALE. 


PURITAN    POLITICS 


ENGLAND    AND    NEW    ENGLAND. 


T  AM  to  treat  in  an  hour,  as  I  can,  a  subject  which  could  be 
-*-  scarcely  entered  upon,  had  the  whole  of  this  course  of 
lectures  been  devoted  to  it.  It  is  a  subject,  as  I  believe,  for 
which  we  are  now  but  beginning  to  collect  the  materials.  For 
the  religious  and  political  prejudices  of  England  did  a  great 
deal,  in  two  centuries,  to  shroud  in  England  the  motives  and 
even  the  acts  of  the  men  to  whom  is  due  the  English  liberty  of 
to-day.  And,  on  our  side  of  the  water,  the  complete  change  of 
scene  and  circumstance  has  swept  away  most  of  the  traditions, 
and  all  the  prejudices  of  the  politics  of  the  Fathers.  It  is  not 
seventy  years,  I  think,  since  Oliver  Cromwell's  portrait  still 
hung  as  a  tavern  sign  in  Boston  ;  and,  quite  up  to  our  own  times, 
such  names  as  Newbury  Street  and  Worcester  Street  ought  to 
remind  the  children  what  kings  fled  before  their  fathers,  in  the 
fights  of  Newbury  and  Worcester.  But,  in  fact,  I  am  afraid 
such  memorials  have  availed  but  little.  For  most  of  us  who 
are  men  and  women,  while  we  were  taught  in  our  childhood  to 
weep  over  the  sorrows  of  the  exiles  in  the  "  Mayflower,"  drank 
in  at  the  same  time,  from  fountains  fed  by  David  Hume  and 
Walter  Scott,  the  notion  that  King  Charles  was  a  martyr,  and 
that  his  judges  were  crazy  men.  I  should  say  it  was  only  within 
the  last  twenty  years,  that  there  had  been  fair  chance  for  an 
honest  verdict  as  to  Puritan  politics,  whether  in  this  country 
or  in  England.  In  that  time,  the  service  for  King  Charles  the 
martyr  has  been  omitted  by  authority  from  the  English  prayer- 


444  PURITAN   POLITICS   IN   ENGLAND   AND   NEW   ENGLAND. 

book.  The  opening  of  the  English  State  papers  has  given  us 
more  light  than  we  had  before.  Not  that  we  have  even  yet  the 
complete  materials  for  history,  but  the  graves  are  giving  up 
their  dead ;  and  from  hour  to  hour  the  lies  of  Clarendon  and 
the  rest  are  exposed. 

I  can  only  attempt  the  outline  of  the  political  movements  of 
the  founders  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  Puritans  of  New  Eng 
land,  —  the  great  men  who  have  been  wisely  called  "  the 
greatest  geniuses  for  government  that  the  world  ever  saw  em 
barked  together  in  one  common  cause." 

I  shall  be  guided  all  along  by  the  studies  and  by  the  phil 
osophy  of  our  own  great  historian  Dr.  Palfrey,  from  whose 
crowded  chapters,  I  find,  I  took  unconsciously  even  the  title 
which  the  lecture  bears.  I  have  been  indebted  to  his  thoughtful 
kindness  or  to  his  counsel,  from  the  first  moment  of  my  life  ;  and 
it  is  no  new  experience  to  me,  that  in  my  enterprise  of  this 
evening  I  find  him  my  constant  guide.  And  I  have,  also,  the 
constant  advantage  of  the  exquisite  care,  the  range  of  ob 
servation  and  the  profound  discrimination,  of  Mr.  Haven,  who, 
as  the  members  of  the  Historical  Society  well  know,  is  far  better 
fitted  than  I  to  enter  on  this  theme. 

I  think  the  key  to  the  whole  story  may  be  found  in  the  ominous 
words  which  King  James's  first  House  of  Commons  addressed 
to  the  House  of  Lords  immediately  after  he  had  been  lecturing 
them  on  his  own  prerogative,  and  on  his  intolerance  to  the 
Puritans.  "  There  may  be  a  people  without  a  King,  but  there 
can  be  no  King  without  a  people."  This  was  comfortable 
doctrine  for  a  monarch,  who,  in  his  escape  from  Scotland,  had 
promised  himself  the  privileges  of  unrestricted  tyranny.  For 
tunately  for  civil  liberty  in  England  and  America,  in  all  countries 
and  in  all  times,  none  of  the  Stuarts  ever  learned  in  time  what 
this  ominous  sentence  means, — not  James  L,  the  most  foolish  of 
them ;  nor  Charles  I.,  the  most  false ;  nor  Charles  II.,  the  most 
worthless ;  nor  James  II.,  the  most  obstinate.  For  eighty-six 
years,  however,  it  was  the  business  of  the  Puritans  of  Eng 
land,  counselled  and  led  in  large  measure,  as  I  shall  show, 
by  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  to  teach  the  Stuarts,  and  to 
teach  the  world,  that  lesson.  And  they  taught  it,  —  that  the 
people  is  stronger  than  the  King,  and  can  tie  the  King's  hands. 


PURITAN   POLITICS   IN   ENGLAND   AND   NEW   ENGLAND.  445 

The  state-craft  jugglery  of  the  closet  shall  not  undo  the  knots ; 
the  trenchant  sword  of  battle  shall  not  cut  the  cords.  If  the 
King  will  learn  the  lesson  in  no  other  way,  he  shall  learn  it  when 
he  sees  the  headsman's  axe  flashing  before  his  eyes.  The  people 
is  stronger  than  the  sovereign ;  and  from  the  people's  power  his 
power  comes.  That  is  the  lesson.  There  may  be  a  people 
without  a  King;  there  can  be  no  King  without  a  people. 

I  must  not  enter  on  the  history  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  though 
the  name  of  Puritan  in  English  history  belongs  as  far  back  as 
the  year  1550. 

King  James,  at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  came  to  the  crown  in 
1603.  On  his  journey  from  Scotland  to  London,  just  half 
way  from  the  frontier  to  the  city,  he  passed  through  Sherwood 
Forest,  and  entertained  the  day,  under  good  conduct,  in  hunting 
there,  —  the  last  huntsman  mentioned,  I  think,  in  the  series 
where  Robin  Hood  is  first.  In  that  day's  sport,  he  passed  the 
manor  house  of  Scrooby,  where  William  Brewster  lived,  — 
afterwards  our  old  Plymouth  Elder.  At  that  very  time  our 
Pilgrim  Fathers  met  privately  to  worship  in  that  house  every 
Sunday.  James  took,  very  likely,  a  mug  of  ale  from  William 
Brewster's  hands,  he  lunched  in  the  open  air,  on  the  bank  of  a 
stream  a  little  further  on,  and  in  such  sylvan  amusement  came  on 
to  Worsop,  where  he  slept.1  The  manor  of  Scrooby,  Brewster's 
home,  belonged  to  the  Archbishop  of  York.  It  attracted  the 
King's  attention,  so  that  he  thought  he  would  like  it  for  a  royal 
residence,  whenever  he  might  hunt  again  in  Sherwood  Forest. 
It  is  a  little  curious  now  to  see,  that  the  first  letter  written  by 
this  Presbyterian  King  to  the  Archbishop  of  York,  after  his 
arrival  at  his  capital,  was,  not  a  discussion  of  theology,  but  a 
proposal  to  the  Archbishop  to  sell  to  him  the  manor  house  in 

1  Nichols's  Progresses  of  King  James  I.  The  whole  passage  is  this  :  — 
"  The  20th  day  being  Wednesday,  his  Majestic  rode  toward  "Worksop,  the  noble 
Earle  of  Shrewsbury's  House,  —  at  Bawtry,  the  High  Sheriff  of  Yorkshire  took  his 
leave  of  the  King,  —  and  there  Mr.  Askoth  (Ayscough)  the  High  Sheriff  of  Notting 
hamshire  received  him,  being  gallantly  appointed  both  with  horse  and  man,  and  so 
he  conducted  his  majestic  on,  till  he  came  within  a  mile  of  Blyth,  where  his  High 
ness  lighted  and  sat  down  on  a  banke  side  to  eat  and  drink." 

Here  Nichols's  note  is,  "  Bawtry  is  a  small  market  town,  situated  partly  in  the 
parish  of  Scrooby,  in  Yorkshire,  and  partly  in  that  of  Blyth,  in  Nottinghamshire. 
The  division  of  the  two  counties  is  marked  by  a  small  current  of  water  in  the  yard 
of  the  Crown  inn." 


446  PURITAN  POLITICS  IN   ENGLAND   AND  NEW  ENGLAND. 

which  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  were  then  secretly  meeting,  on  the 
Lord's  day,  for  their  weekly  worship;  and  in  which  they  con 
tinued  to  meet  till  this  same  Presbyterian  King  "  harried  them 
out  of  the  kingdom."  The  incident,  trifling  in  itself,  illustrates 
very  perfectly  the  relation  between  the  three  parties  then  in  Eng 
land.  The  extreme  Puritans,  represented  by  no  man  better 
than  William  Brewster,  were  meeting  in  private  houses  for 
their  worship.  They  were  expecting  grace  and  help  from  a 
Presbyterian  monarch.  The  Bishops  and  Archbishops  were 
doubting  and  dreading  what  might  come  to  them  and  theirs, 
from  a  King  who  had  been  nursed  in  the  school  of  John  Knox 
and  Jane  Geddies.  And  this  King  —  who  was  to  arbitrate 
between  the  parties,  and  to  meet  the  hopes  of  one  and  the 
fears  of  the  other,  —  was  thinking  more  of  himself  and  his  own 
comfort  than  of  the  consciences  of  either.  All  this,  I  say, 
is  typified,  when  James  I.  asks  Archbishop  Hutton,  to  turn 
William  Brewster  out  of  his  home,  that  he  may  have  a  con 
venient  hunting-lodge.1 

In  five  years  more,  Brewster  and  the  Fathers,  who  met  to 
worship  in  the  Archbishop's  manor  house,  were  harried  out  of 
England.  James  and  the  Church,  of  which  the  Archbishop  was 
the  second  officer,  were  in  absolute  accord,  —  hunting  the  same 
game! 

The  first  incident  of  his  reign,  around  which  the  politics  of 
the  time  took  form,  was  the  conference  of  the  clergy  at  Hamp 
ton  Court  for  the  revision  of  the  Liturgy,  in  which  the  Puritan 
and  the  High  Church  party  were  both  represented.  The  King 
showed  at  once,  that  he  meant  to  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of 
the  party  which  would  give  him  most  power  in  the  State,  and 
could  do  most  to  place  him  in  the  position  of  the  absolute  mon- 
archs  of  the  Continent  of  Europe.  Any  pretensions  of  his 
Scottish  reign  were  swept  away,  like  other  pettinesses  and 
inconveniences  of  his  Northern  home.  He  silenced  the  Puritan 
doctors  by  entering  himself  into  the  arena. 

"  If  you  aim  at  a  Scottish  presbytery,  it  agrees  as  well  with 
monarchy  as  God  and  the  devil."  These  words  show  the  spirit 
of  the  King's  contributions  to  the  discussion,  of  which  Archbishop 

1  The  King's  letter  to  the  Archbishop  comes  to  light  in  the  Calendar  of  Domestic 
Papers  of  his  reign,  edited  by  Mrs.  Green. 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN  ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  447 

Whitgift  was  pleased  to  say,  that  "undoubtedly  his  Majesty 
spake  by  the  special  assistance  of  God's  Spirit."  It  was  in  this 
Conference  that  his  favorite  axiom,  "  No  Bishop,  no  King,"  first 
appears  on  the  royal  lips.  Perhaps  it  suggested  the  more  omi 
nous  axiom,  which  I  have  quoted  from  his  first  Parliament, — 
"  There  can  be  no  King  without  a  People." 

That  Parliament  was  not  summoned  till  the  King  had  been  on 
the  throne  more  than  a  year ;  a  pestilence  in  London  delaying 
its  assembly.  The  celebrated  gunpowder  plot  —  in  which  twenty 
resolute  men,  who  kept  a  secret  for  a  year  and  a  half,  expected 
to  destroy  the  King,  his  family,  the  Lords,  and  the  Commons, 
and  in  which  they  came  so  near  success  —  was  detected  just  as 
the  session  began.  The  reaction  from  that  plot  might  have 
given  to  James  that  hold  on  the  people  which,  I  think,  he  never 
gained.  But  he  did  not  enter  into  the  rage  against  the  Roman 
Catholics,  to  whose  church  the  conspirators  belonged ;  and  the 
terrible  experience  prolonged  only  a  little  the  "  inevitable  con 
flict"  between  him  and  his  subjects. 

If  we  trace  the  history  of  the  Court,  the  chapters  of  this  reign 
are  the  histories  of  favorites,  Carr  and  Villiers;  of  the  death 
of  Prince  Henry ;  of  the  matches  proposed  for  Prince  Charles ; 
and  of  the  fortunes  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  at  one  moment 
the  object  of  Protestant  idolatry.  The  episodes  in  that  court 
history  are  such  as  closed  poor  Raleigh's  life.  If  we  trace  the 
history  of  the  people,  we  find  the  steady  growth  of  resist 
ance  to  other  authority  than  the  authority  of  the  law.  We 
find  the  luxury  of  wider  and  wider  study  of  the  Scripture, 
passing  sometimes  into  the  fanaticism  and  folly  of  a  novelty. 
We  trace  the  growth  to  manhood  of  Eliot  and  Hampden,  Win- 
throp  and  Vane  and  Cromwell.  Shakspeare  died  in  1615, 
midway  in  the  King's  reign.  The  Colony  of  Virginia  was 
planted  under  the  old  system  of  colonization,  1607;  and,  in  the 
same  year,  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  were  driven  out  of  England,  little 
knowing  that  they  were  to  be  the  great  exemplars  of  the  success 
of  the  new  system  of  colonization.1  The  received  version  of 

1  It  took  near  a  hundred  years  for  our  Fathers  to  learn  again  how  to  establish 
permanent  colonies.  The  effort,  for  the  sixteenth  century,  was  made,  almost  always, 
by  sending  men  alone ;  and  in  almost  every  instance  it  failed.  When  England  bor 
rowed  from  Greek  experience,  and  from  Spanish  experience,  and  sent  women  with  the 


448  PURITAN  POLITICS  IN  ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND. 

the  English  Scriptures  was  made  by  a  commission  appointed  by 
the  King,  and  came  into  common  use  in  England.  The  two 
things  in  history  which  preserve  the  reign  of  James  from  con 
tempt  are  the  translation  of  the  Bible  and  the  settlement  of 
America.  And  I  can  give  no  better  illustration  of  the  way  in 
which  history  has  been  written  in  the  past,  than  by  saying  that 
in  the  two  great  English  histories  of  this  reign,  by  Hume  and  by 
Lingard,  the  translation  of  the  Bible  is  not  so  much  as  men 
tioned,  and  that  Lingard  does  not  give  a  word  to  the  planting 
of  America.  Hume  only  squeezes  out  for  it  a  wretched  page  in 
the  midst  of  chapters  devoted  to  the  disgusting  intrigues  of 
Rochester  and  the  Countess  of  Essex  and  Buckingham  and  the 
rest,  none  of  whom  are  of  any  worth  but  for  this,  that  they  were 
busily  destroying  the  last  relics  of  the  regard  which  men  had  for 
the  institutions  of  feudal  times. 

The  intrigues  of  the  Court  and  the  deep  determination  of  the 
people  of  England  can  be  put  face  to  face,  however,  by  dragging 
out  from  history  the  contemporary  revelations.  William  Brew- 
ster,  telling  of  old  times  around  his  pine-knot  fire  in  Plymouth, 
filled  his  stage  with  such  actors  as  Mary  Queen  of  Scots, 
Queen  Elizabeth,  King  James,  Raleigh,  Essex,  Southampton,  all 
of  whom  he  must  have  seen,  as  I  suppose  he  must  have  seen 
William  Shakspeare.  On  that  Christmas  season  of  1620,  at 
the  moment  when  John  Carver  and  Edward  Winslow  were 
cutting  the  timber  for  the  first  store-house  of  Plymouth,  build 
ing  better  than  they  knew  indeed,  King  James  was  entertaining 
at  his  palace  the  embassy  which  first  proposed  the  ill-fated 
marriage  between  Charles  I.  and  Henrietta  of  France.  Of 
the  masque  prepared  for  that  royal  entertainment,  all  that  is 
known  is  that  the  humor  consisted  in  the  ridicule  of  a  Puritan.1 
From  the  building  of  the  store-house  grew  the  old  Colony,  the 
Colony  of  Massachusetts,  the  New-England  confederation,  the 
union  of  the  United  States  and  the  republican  government  and 
the  civil  liberty  of  America.  From  the  policy  which  united 

men,  homes  were  founded  for  the  first  time,  and  the  nature  of  colonization  changed. 
Jamestown  and  Sagadahoc  were  the  last  experiments  on  the  old  theory ;  Plymouth, 
the  first  on  the  new.  The  settlement  at  Manhattan  was  not  so  much  a  colony  as  a 
trading-port. 

1  The  authorities  maybe  found  at  length  in  Mrs.  Green's  Calendars.  I  have 
quoted  them  in  detail  in  an  article  in  the  "  Galaxy  "  magazine  for  January,  1868 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN  ENGLAND   AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  449 

Charles  and  Henrietta  grew  the  English  rebellion  and  the 
English  revolution,  from  that  marriage  came  Charles  II., 
James  II.,  and  Queen  Mary.  The  two  lines  of  history  which 
are  thus  suggested  lead  out  from  the  contrast  between  the  history 
of  the  Court  and  the  history  of  the  people  in  the  reign  of  King 
James. 

But  in  King  Charles's  time,  people  and  King  come  closer,  and 
the  history  of  the  politics  of  the  people  is  the  history  of  the 
politics  of  the  King.  Charles  quarrelled  with  his  first  Parlia 
ment;  and  if  he  could  have  had  his  way,  he  would  never  have 
had  another.  Our  associate,  Mr.  Sabine,  reminds  us  that  the 
very  first  question  on  which  King  and  Commons  broke  was  an 
American  question, —  a  question  of  the  fisheries.1  For  eleven 
years  Charles  reigned  as  absolutely  as  Philip  II.  ever  reigned  in 
Spain.  He  and  his  would  have  been  glad  to  reign  so  until  now, 
and  might  have  done  so  but  that  there  was  an  English  church 
and  an  English  people.  Nay  :  do  not  let  me,  even  in  the  accident 
of  expression,  imply  that  between  the  church  and  the  people 
there  was  any  distinction,  if  you  speak  of  the  real  church  and 
the  real  people.  Of  that  great  crisis  of  English  history,  the 
secret  is  this,  that  the  real  people  of  England  were  religious  men 
and  women  to  the  very  bottom  of  their  hearts ;  that  what  they 
did  in  matters  politic  they  did  as  matter  of  religious  duty;  not  as 
what  poor  James  called  a  piece  of  state-craft,  but  as  a  part  of 
their  religious  allegiance  to  the  King  of  kings.  I  believe  this 
profound  conviction  of  religious  duty  has  been  the  secret  of  all 
the  successful  politics  of  the  men  of  that  race  from  that  day  to 
this  day.  But  it  was  a  divine  mystery  which  it  was  not  given 
to  politicians  like  Wentworth,  or  formalists  like  Laud,  or  liars 
like  King  Charles,  to  understand.  None  the  less  was  there  a  fire 
beneath  the  whole,  of  which  the  tokens  were  sometimes  fearful 
and  sometimes  awful.  Its  presence  there  gives  to  the  study  of 
the  politics  to  which  it  lent  the  heat,  an  interest,  which  to  the 
intrigues  of  courtiers  like  those  of  Louis,  or  even  to  the  rivalries 
of  statesmen  like  those  of  Elizabeth,  is  all  unknown. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  measure  by  any  statistics  the 
extent  or  the  depth  of  this  religious  feeling  or  of  any  religious 

1  Sabine's  Report  on  the  Principal  Fisheries,  Washington,  1853,  p.  45. 

29 


450  PURITAN  POLITICS  IN  ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND. 

feeling.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  a  long  series  of 
non-conformity  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  what  the  English 
Church  calls  pluralism  on  the  other,  left  but  two  thousand 
clergymen  in  the  service  of  the  ten  thousand  livings  of  England, 
in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time.  Of  these  two  thousand  clergy 
men,  nearly  one  thousand  marked  themselves  as  Puritan  by 
joining  in  the  petition1  which,  at  James's  accession,  begged 
him  to  amend  the  rubrics  in  favor  of  puritan  consciences.  These 
figures  show,  that,  while  there  were  ten  thousand  congregations 
or  churches  in  England,  but  little  more  than  one  thousand  of  her 
clergy  gave  even  a  silent  acquiescence  to  such  extravagant  pre 
tensions  as  those  of  Whitgift  and  Bancroft,  who,  in  such  matters, 
were  the  predecessors  of  Laud.  In  Charles's  time,  the  fact  is 
incidentally  stated,  that,  in  the  mere  dead-weight  of  property,  the 
Puritan  House  of  Commons  was  three  times  as  rich  as  was  the 
House  of  Lords.  And  of  the  House  of  Lords,  a  very  consider 
able  part  held  with  the  people  as  against  the  King.  Be  it  always 
remembered,  too,  that  on  the  side  of  the  King  also,  as  soon  as 
you  leave  the  rank  of  mere  soldiers  and  mere  courtiers,  you  are 
surrounded  by  men  and  women  of  the  purest  conscience.  You 
meet  such  men  as  George  Herbert  and  Owen  Feltham.  When 
they  came  to  the  arbitrament  of  arms,  the  misfortune  to  the 
King  was  that  five-sixths  of  England  were  against  him.  And, 
as  I  said,  that  which  gives  the  terrible  reality  to  the  history,  is 
the  truth  which  I  think  no  man  will  question,  that,  on  both  sides, 
a  large  proportion  of  the  combatants  were  actuated  by  profound 
religious  conviction.  And  what  saved  England  and  America  in 
that  crisis,  was  that  the  monarchs  who  wished  to  play  the  tyrant 
there,  found  the  English  Church  and  the  English  people  on  the 
other  side. 

The  first  years  of  Charles's  reign  gave  no  hope  to  the  people 
of  England.  I  speak  of  the  people  in  contrast  from  the  men 
and  women  of  the  Court,  who  were  trying  to  hold  to  the  methods 
of  feudal  rule.  The  marriage  of  the  King  with  a  Roman  Catho 
lic  princess  had  offended  and  affronted  the  Protestantism  of 
England.  When  he  made  war  with  France  under  the  pretext 

1  Thence  called  "  the  millenary  petition."  The  spelling  is  important.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  it  asked  for  an  exemption  from  the  surplice  and  other  customs  con 
sidered  "  Popish." 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN   ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  451 

of  coming  to.  the  defence  of  the  hard-pressed  Huguenots,  he 
conducted  the  war  under  such  lead  as  Buckingham's ;  collected 
his  revenue  under  such  systems  as  Louis  and  Philip  would  have 
used;  and,  by  the  method,  disgusted  the  English  people,  who 
might  have  been  interested  in  the  cause  of  the  war.  Two  years 
after  his  reign  began,  Charles  wanted  the  help  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury.  The  Archbishop  was  in  disgrace  already,  be 
cause  he  had  refused  the  aid  of  the  Church  in  the  disgusting 
intrigue  —  with  which  I  will  insult  no  man's  ears  —  in  which 
Somerset  and  the  Lady  Essex  were  the  actors.  Now,  in  his  re 
tirement,  he  refused  to  license  the  printing  of  a  sermon,  in  which 
a  court  chaplain,  Sibthorpe,  had  laid  down  the  doctrine  that  a 
king  might  do  what  he  pleased ;  and  no  man  might  say,  "  What 
dost  thou  ?  "  For  this  refusal,  King  Charles  suspended  him,  — 
the  highest  officer  of  the  Church  beneath  himself.  The  act,  at 
this  day,  would  disgust  the  most  ardent  lover  of  the  Episcopacy, 
as  much  as  it  then  disgusted  the  most  eager  Puritan.  Bucking 
ham's  disgrace  on  the  coast  of  France  soon  followed.  The 
King's  third  Parliament  was  summoned,  and  Charles  strove  to 
govern  it  by  buying  Wentworth,  —  afterwards  known  as  Lord 
Strafford,  —  "  the  first  Englishman,"  says  Macaulay  boldly,  "  dis 
graced  by  a  peerage."  Laud  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  High 
Commission  Court.  Parliament  defied  the  King,  and  the  King 
defied  them.  He  dissolved  them ;  and,  as  I  said,  began  to  reign 
for  years  as  an  absolute  monarch.  The  Star  Chamber  was  in  its 
glory,  and  such  men  as  Eliot  and  Holies  were  in  the  Tower. 

Such  were  the  first  five  years  of  this  young  King's  reign,  — 
one  steady  insult  to  the  best  feeling  of  his  people.  In  those  five 
years,  Rev.  John  White,  minister  of  Dorchester,  the  founder  of 
Massachusetts,  was,  in  his  way,  encouraging  this  man,  who  had 
heard  of  New  England,  and  teaching  that  to  whom  the  name 
had  never  come  before.  "  There  was  a  land  of  refuge,"  White 
was  saying  to  all  men.  And  a  larger  and  larger  company  of  the 
merchants  of  London,  of  the  merchants  of  the  other  cities,  and 
gradually  of  the  country  gentlemen  of  England,  were  learning 
that,  if  their  battle  were  lost  at  home,  it  might  be  won  in  a  land 
where  there  was  no  bishop  and  no  King.  I  make  no  question 
that  White,  and  those  who  acted  with  him,  appealed  to  every 
motive  that  was  honest,  that  would  swell  the  number  of  those 


452  PURITAN   POLITICS   IN   ENGLAND   AND   NEW   ENGLAND. 

who  would  engage  in  the  colonization  movement.  I  have 
myself,  in  my  poor  way,  in  later  times,  acted  with  those  who 
were  promoting  emigration  to  the  west  of  the  Missouri  River, 
when  we  thought  that  on  that  emigration  great  principles  for  all 
time  depended.  And  I  think  therefore,  that,  unless  men  are 
very  different  now  from  what  they  were  then,  men  entered  into 
the  great  emigration  from  which  we  have  grown  with  a  large 
variety  of  motive.  Only  I  am  sure,  no  man  came  here  because 
he  loved  King  Charles,  or  because  he  believed  in  Laud's  Court 
of  High  Commission.  And  I  am  sure,  that  John  White  and 
Matthew  Cradock  and  Isaac  Johnson  and  Richard  Saltonstall 
and  our  great  leader,  Winthrop,  meant  that  the  enterprise  should 
be  controlled  by  men  who  would  never  give  in  to  the  tyrannies 
of  Charles  or  to  the  pretensions  of  Laud.  How  well  those 
intentions  were  carried  out,  I  have  next  to  show. 

England  "  grows  weary  of  her  inhabitants ;  so  as  man,  who 
is  the  most  precious  of  all  creatures,  is  here  more  vile  and  base 
than  the  earth  we  tread  upon."  These  are  the  words  which 
Winthrop  uses,  in  the  "  Nine  Reasons  "  which  justify  the  new 
plantation.  These  reasons  are  passed  from  hand  to  hand 
among  the  men  most  saddened  by  the  oppressions  of  the  Star 
Chamber,  and  most  determined  to  find  freedom  somewhere.  As 
soon  as  Mr.  Forster  published  his  larger  life  of  Sir  John  Eliot, 
our  President,  Mr.  Winthrop,  in  correspondence  with  him,  dis 
covered  that  the  paper  on  Emigration  there  spoken  of,  sent  by 
Eliot  in  the  Tower  to  Hampden  in  his  house,  was  a  copy  of 
Winthrop's  "  Nine  Reasons."  Eliot  had  transcribed  Winthrop's 
paper,  and  sent  it  to  Hampden  for  his  study.  These  men,  the 
great  leaders  of  the  English  Puritans,  were  thus  personally 
interested  in  the  enterprise  here.  We  knew  already  that  it  had 
the  support  of  Lord  Brooke  and  Lord  Warwick  and  Lord  Say 
and  Sele.  It  is  now  certain  that  John  Hampden  is  not  the 
Hampden  who  spent  an  early  winter  with  our  Plymouth 
friends  ;  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  he  and  Eliot  were  inter 
esting  themselves  in  our  Massachusetts  Colony  when  it  sailed, 
and  were  among  those  who  saw  how  essential  was  this  begin 
ning  to  the  success  of  their  great  cause.  Under  such  auspices, 
the  government  and  charter  were  transferred  from  England  to 
New  England,— the  boldest  change  of  base  in  history.  In  its 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN  ENGLAND   AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  453 

success,  as  I  believe,  the  history  of  constitutional  liberty  begins. 
That  change  was  made  by  men  who  meant  that  their  new-born 
State  should  not  be  dependent,  if  they  could  help  it,  on  the 
powers  which  were  ruling  England  to  her  ruin.1 

On  their  arrival  here,  they  settled  the  great  question  of  bishop 
or  no  bishop,  which  was  one  of  the  elements  of  strife  at  home. 
They  settled  it  by  an  arrangement  of  their  churches,  in  the  face 
of  all  that  had  been  asserted  by  Whitgift  and  Bancroft  and 
Laud.  So  far  as  the  forms  of  government  went,  they  swore 
their  magistrates,  their  freemen  and  their  people  to  be  faithful 
to  the  government  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  Bay; 
but  they  alluded  no  more  in  that  oath  to  their  allegiance  to  King 
Charles  than  to  allegiance  to  King  Louis  or  to  the  Pope  of 
Rome.  The  Governor  and  assistants  only,  for  the  first  twelve 
years,  were  sworn  to  be  faithful  to  King  Charles ;  but,  so  soon 
as  he  took  up  arms  against  the  Parliament,  his  name  disappears 
from  the  oath,  long  before  it  was  disused  by  anyone  in  England. 
Four  years  only  after  the  foundation  of  Boston,  a  rumor  carne 
from  England,  that  a  governor-general  was  to  be  appointed  by 
the  King.  The  magistrates  took  counsel  with  the  ministers ; 
and  the  ministers  advised,  that,  if  a  governor-general  were  sent, 
"  we  ought  not  accept  him ;  but  defend  our  lawful  possessions, 
if  we  were  able ;  otherwise,  to  avoid  and  protract."  Two  years 
later,  some  English  ship  captains  in  our  harbor  intimated,  that 
they  should  be  glad  to  see  the  royal  colors  displayed  on  the  fort 
in  the  harbor.  They  were  answered,  that  we  had  not  the  King's 
colors  to  show.  The  shipmasters  offered  to  lend  them,  but  it 
cost  a  day's  discussion  and  evident  heart-burnings  before  they 
could  be  displayed  there  ;  and  this  was  done  only  on  a  nicely 
drawn  distinction  on  the  King's  authority  in  the  fort  and  the 
King's  authority  in  the  Colony.  Early  in  the  history,  Endicott 
cut  the  cross  out  of  the  colors ;  and  from  that  moment  till  the 

1  I  may  be  thought  to  speak  of  this  "  change  of  base  "  with  the  prejudice  of  a 
New-Englander.  I  am  glad  to  quote  Mr.  John  Forster's  language,  therefore.  In 
his  letter  to  Mr.  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  forwarding  a  copy  of  the  Eliot  manuscript,  he 
says,  "  There  is  a  new  and  striking  interest  contributed  to  a  transaction  which,  more 
largely  than  any  other  in  history,  has  affected  the  destinies  of  the  human  race/' 

The  Eliot  draft  and  a  draft  from  the  State-paper  office  were  printed  in  our  "  Pro 
ceedings,"  at  the  date  of  July,  1865.  Another  copy  is  in  Hutchinson.  and  another  in 
"  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Winthrop." 


454  PURITAN   POLITICS   IN   ENGLAND   AND   NEW   ENGLAND. 

Restoration,  I  think,  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  had  a 
flag  of  its  own.  On  a  new  rumor,  that  the  King  or  the  Star 
Chamber  proposed  to  extend  their  authority  thus  far,  the 
chronicler,  who  had  left  his  home  to  establish  here  his  taber 
nacle,  undoubtedly  expresses  the  determination  of  all  the  leaders 
when  he  says,  they  would  rather  remove  again,  and  establish 
themselves  in  a  "vacuum  domicilium,"  —  a  home  which  no 
sovereign  claimed,  —  this  side  the  King  of  kings.  To  the  valley 
of  the  Mohawk,  perhaps,  or,  if  God  guided,  further  west,  —  to 
some  Salt-Lake  Valley,  if  it  were  needed!  They  meant  that 
men  should  know  whether  Charles's  authority  could  go  farther 
in  America  than  the  shores  which  the  guns  of  his  ships  could 
command. 

But  there  was  no  danger  for  Massachusetts.  The  bow  had 
been  bent  too  far,  and  it  broke.  The  little  history  which  had 
thus  been  rehearsed  by  a  handful  of  zealous  men,  on  the  little 
stage  of  Massachusetts,  was  to  be  acted  out  by  a  larger  com 
pany,  to  whom  they  sent  many  teachers,  in  the  England  which 
they  feared.  William  Vassall,  one  of  the  Massachusetts  Com 
pany,  Lord  Say  and  Sele  and  John  Hampden,  both  patentees 
of  Connecticut,  determined  to  bring  the  question  of  ship-money 
to  trial.  Once  more,  as  Mr.  Sabine  reminds  us,  the  turning 
question  is  a  question  of  the  fisheries.  The  ship-rnoney  built 
the  fleet  which  drove  off  Dutch  intrusion  of  the  English  fishing 
privileges.  Sir  John  Eliot,  meanwhile,  Hampden's  friend  and 
ours,  had  died  in  the  Tower.  Laud  had  tried  his  hand  on  the 
reformation  of  Scotland.  Charles  had  followed  up  the  experi 
ment  with  an  army ;  and  Alexander  Leslie,  with  his  other  army 
of  ministers,  —  an  army  which  was  within  itself  a  church, 
of  which  every  corps  possessed  a  presbytery, —  drove  Charles 
and  his  army  back  to  England.  So  passed  the  ten  years 
while  Winthrop  and  Dudley  and  the  rest  were  organizing 
New  England  into  an  independent  State.  The  King  had  no 
choice  left.  By  his  own  folly,  he  had  wriggled  himself  to  the 
corner  of  his  board.  He  called,  at  last,  a  Parliament,  and  dis 
solved  it,  Then  he  was  forced  to  call  the  Long  Parliament; 
and  then,  though  he  did  not  know  it,  the  game  was  done. 
"  Shah-mat,"  says  the  Persian,  as  he  finishes  on  the  chess-board 
the  game  of  simulated  war,  and  the  words  have  passed  into  all 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN   ENGLAND   AND   NEW  ENGLAND.  455 

languages.  Sometimes  you  take  the  bit  of  crowned  ivory  from 
the  board,  sometimes  you  leave  it  there.  That  is  nothing.  The 
game  is  ended.  Shah-mat,  —  check-mate.  The  King  is  dead ! 
In  Charles's  case,  the  King,  with  his  knights  and  bishops, 
hopped  from  square  to  square  on  their  little  board,  for  eight 
short  years,  hoping  to  avoid  the  inevitable.  But  the  people 
of  England  had  the  power  in  their  hands.  The  Great  Remon 
strance,  at  the  end  of  1641,  showed  that  the  Long  Parliament 
understood  its  duty,  and  could  do  it.  "  If  the  vote  had  been 
lost,"  said  Cromwell,  as  they  left  the  House  that  night,  "  I  would 
haye  sold  all  I  had  to-morrow,  and  would  never  have  seen  Eng 
land  more."  He  meant  he  would  have  come  to  New  England. 

"  O'er  the  deep 

Fly,  and  one  current  to  the  ocean  add ; 
One  spirit  to  the  souls  our  fathers  had  ; 
One  freeman  more,  America,  to  thee." 

This  was  not  the  time  when  Charles  stopped  the  ships  on  the 
Thames,  when,  it  is  said,  Hampden  was  on  board  ready  to 
emigrate.  It  is  fairly  doubted,. whether  Cromwell  had  joined 
that  earlier  emigration.  This  was  four  years  later,  —  at  the  end 
of  1641.  Had  Cromwell  come,  he  would  have  arrived  here  just 
before  the  first  Commencement  of  Harvard  College ;  he  would 
have  arrived,  just  as  the  General  Court  was  striking  the  name 
of  King  Charles  out  of  the  oath ;  he  would  have  arrived,  just 
as  the  short-lived  standing  council  was  disarmed ;  he  would 
have  arrived,  just  as  the  position  of  the  Lower  House  first  came 
into  discussion ;  he  would  have  arrived,  just  as  the  four 
colonies  were  arranging  their  confederation.  At  the  election 
day  of  that  year,  John  Winthrop  was  chosen  governor  for  the 
first  year  of  his  third  term.  Would  he  perhaps  have  yielded  his 
seat  the  next  year  to  Oliver  Cromwell  ?  Would  Oliver  Crom 
well  have  been  the  sixth  governor  of  Massachusetts  ?  or  would 
he  have  led  a  company  to  Strawberry  Bank,  to  the  Connecticut 
or  to  the  Mohawk,  and  become  himself  the  Protector  of  an  infant 
Commonwealth  ? 

It  was  not  so  written.  The  King  tried  war,  —  under  the 
impression  that  has  more  than  once  deceived  the  cavaliers  of  a 
waning  chivalry,  that  people  who  believe  in  precedents  and 
principles,  who  trust  in  prayer  because  they  trust  in  God,  will 


456  PURITAN   POLITICS   IN   ENGLAND    AND   NEW   ENGLAND. 

not  prove  quick  at  fighting.  At  the  stronghold  of  Nottingham, 
in  the  Sherwood  Forest,  where  James  had  hunted,  Charles 
displayed  his  banner.  Two  years  of  skirmishing  advanced  the 
final  settlement  but  little ;  and  the  death  of  Hampden  and  Pym 
took  from  the  Parliament  the  men  who  seemed  their  ablest 
guides.  These  two  leaders  were  almost  American  except  in 
name,  both  early  friends  of  Massachusetts,  both  grantees  of  the 
charter  of  Connecticut.  If  Lord  Nugent  is  to  be  believed, 
Hampden  was  actually  on  shipboard  once  on  his  way  hither. 
Meanwhile  our  Earl  of  Warwick,  who  had  really  secured  for  us 
the  Massachusetts  charter,  showed  that  his  training  for  maritime 
adventures  stood  him  well  in  stead,  in  his  command  of  the  Par 
liament  fleet,  which  cut  off  from  the  King  any  foreign  re 
sources. 

At  this  point,  the  Independents  of  England  began  more  dis 
tinctly  to  study  the  methods  of  Massachusetts.  Unterrified  by  the 
shock  of  arms,  Parliament  attempted  the  difficult  question  of 
church  administration.  The  celebrated  Westminster  Assembly 
was  convened,  —  hated,  with  gopd  reason,  by  most  children 
of  recent  generations,  —  but,  for  the  first  years  of  its  existence, 
second  only  to  the  Long  Parliament  itself  in  its  influence  in 
England.  To  this  assembly,  Cotton,  Hooker,  and  Davenport, 
the  ministers  of  the  first  churches  of  Boston,  Hartford,  and  New 
Haven,  were  earnestly  invited  by  leading  men  in  England,  who 
dreaded  the  Presbyterian  influence  of  that  body.  They  were 
strongly  tempted,  I  suppose,  but  they  did  not  go.  Hooker,  for 
one,  felt  sure  that  he  could  arrange  the  church  system  of 
America.  He  believed  in  the  independence  of  America  too 
thoroughly  to  compromise  our  system  by  any  failure  in  Eng 
land.  And,  as  it  proved,  the  plans  of  Cotton  have  worked  well 
here  to  this  hour. 

On  the  question  of  Presbyterian  Church  Government,  or  In 
dependency,  or  Congregationalism,  as  Cotton  preferred  to  call 
our  form  of  it,  a  great  deal  seemed  to  depend.  Among  other 
things,  the  alliance  with  Presbyterian  Scotland  seemed  to  depend 
upon  it.  At  the  outset  of  the  civil  war,  there  seemed  no 
doubt  that  the  Presbyterian  influence  prevailed  both  in  the 
Parliament  and  the  Westminster  Assembly.  We  are  to  remem 
ber  all  along,  as  Lord  Nugent  says,  that  nothing  has  more  tended 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN  ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  457 

to  cloud  this  history,  than  the  use  of  the  one  word  Puritan  to 
represent  Presbyterians  and  Independents.  When  we  speak  of 
the  Puritans,  as  proclaiming  religious  liberty,  in  the  trumpet 
tones  of  Milton,  —  we  mean  not  the  Presbyterians,  but  the  In 
dependents.  Looking  back  upon  history,  we  can  see  that  the 
Presbyterians  were  tempted  to  hold  that  mid-way  position,  or 
position  of  compromise,  which  seldom  triumphs  in  revolutions 
which  involve  a  principle,  —  the  position  which  the  Girondists 
held  in  France  in  the  first  revolution,  and  which  the  Parlia 
mentary  opposition  in  the  French  Chambers  held  in  the  last. 
The  little  company  of  Independents  steadily  gained  force  in 
Parliament  and  in  the  Assembly,  which  their  numbers  at  the 
outset  did  not  seem  to  promise.  What  is  of  vast  importance  at 
such  a  crisis,  it  proved  that,  with  such  leaders  as  Cromwell,  they 
were  gaining  the  sway  of  the  army,  while  the  simplicity  and 
democracy  of  their  system  gained,  for  the  moment  at  least,  the 
confidence  of  the  great  body  of  the  people.  In  all  their  argu 
ment,  they  had  always  the  great  advantage  of  showing  our  work 
ing  example  of  their  theory.  A  working  example  is  what  the 
Englishman  or  American,  of  Saxon  lineage,  always  respects  as 
he  respects  no  untried  theory.  The  New-England  churches  were 
Independent  Churches;  and  Cromwell  and  Vane  and  Fiennes 
and  St.  John  used  the  tracts  of  Cotton  and  Hooker  and 
Norton  and  the  other  New-England  ministers,  as  being  for  a 
thousand  reasons  the  best  weapons  in  their  arsenal. 

In  the  arrangement  of  the  churches  of  England,  the  theory 
of  the  New-England  Independents  triumphed  over  the  theory 
of  the  Presbyterians.  I  do  not  claim  that  it  triumphed  be 
cause  of  their  advocacy.  I  think  it  more  safe  to  say,  that  it 
triumphed,  because  it  was  an  extreme  opinion,  and  those  were 
extreme  times.  It  triumphed  without  any  formal  vote.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  formal  votes  of  the  Westminster  Assembly 
arranged  the  Presbyterian  order,  and  the  Presbyterian  machinery 
was  established  in  London  and  in  Lancashire.  But  no  enact 
ment  of  Parliament  carried  it  out  through  England;  and  the 
more  simple  statement,  which  made  each  congregation  an  inde 
pendent  church,  was  the  statement  which  for  the  period  of  the 
English  Commonwealth  prevailed  in  practice. 

But  the  times  had  swept  men  beyond  any  mere  question  of 

2 


458  PURITAN   POLITICS   IN   ENGLAND   AND   NEW   ENGLAND. 

ecclesiastical  arrangement.  It  was  now  a  question  between  half 
way  men  and  men  who,  in  President  Lincoln's  phrase,  would 
"  put  it  through."  Cromwell  and  his  friends  among  the  Indepen 
dents  had  found  out  what  I  suppose  the  leaders  of  the  people 
find  out  in  the  beginning  of  all  civil  wars.  They  found  out  that, 
in  their  own  army,  the  Essexes  and  the  Manchesters  were 
afraid  of  beating  the  King  too  well.  The  question  of  Indepen 
dent  versus  Presbyterian,  which  was  at  first  a  question  of  church 
discipline,  became  a  question  of  strategy  in  the  field,  of  diplo 
macy  in  negotiation,  of  stern  practice  in  Parliament,  and  at  last 
in  the  Palace  Yard.  It  became  at  last  the  question  between  the 
army  and  the  Parliament.  And,  in  that  question,  the  Inde 
pendents,  —  who  ruled  the  army,  —  as  we  know,  prevailed.  The 
army  purged  the  Parliament.  The  purged  Parliament  created 
the  High  Court  of  Justice,  for  the  trying  and  judging  of  Charles 
Stuart.  The  High  Court  of  Justice  found  him  guilty  of  treason 
and  beheaded  him.  There  may  be  a  people  without  a  King, — 
there  cannot  be  a  King  without  a  people. 

I  should  like  to  discuss  the  question,  whether  their  success  were 
the  success  of  might,  or  of  right,  or  of  both  together.  I  believe 
the  right  conquered,  when  the  might  conquered.  The  Fathers 
of  New  England  thought  so :  I  think  with  them.  I  must  not 
discuss  that  question  now.  I  must  leave  it  where  Cromwell 
left  it  in  his  letter  to  Hammond.  Two  lawful  powers  in  Eng 
land  disagree  as  to  the  disposition  to  be  made  of  the  King. 
One  is  the  army,  lawfully  called,  and  consisting  of  thousands 
of  Christian  men,  who  have  risked,  and  still  risk,  their  lives,  as 
witness  for  their  sincerity.  The  other  is  the  Parliament, 
chosen  eight  years  since  by  the  clumsy  borough  system  of 
England ;  of  which  a  majority  believes  that  the  King's  word 
may  still  be  taken.  These  two  are  at  issue.  Cromwell  says 
that  the  army  is  the  truer  representation  of  the  people  of 
England.  I  think  he  is  right.  As  to  the  question  decided, 
whether  Charles  could  be  believed  for  an  instant,  when  his 
interest  required  him  to  be  false,  all  men  know  now  that  the 
decision  of  the  army  was  the  true  one. 

If  I  know  myself,  I  can  speak  without  prejudice  here.  Per 
sonally,  I  am  proud  to  run  back  the  lines  of  my  own  ancestry  to 
Adrian  Scrope  who  voted  for  the  King's  death,  and  afterwards, 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN   ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  459 

trusting  in  Charles  II.'s  amnesty,  lost  his  own  head  for  trusting  it. 
By  another  line,  I  am  proud  to  trace  my  ancestry  to  Mary  Dyer, 
the  Quaker,  who,  at  nearly  the  same  time,  was  hanged  by  the 
Massachusetts  Puritans  here  on  Boston  Common,  because  she, 
too,  thought  she  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  man.  I  am 
proud  of  both  these  ancestors.  I  am  as  proud  of  one  of  them 
as  I  am  of  the  other.  They  teach  me  very  distinctly  the  lesson 
of  the  narrowness  of  Puritan  presumption.  But  while  I  learn 
that  lesson,  I  learn  also  the  lesson  of  the  Puritan's  unfaltering 
loyalty  to  the  King  of  kings.  I  think  no  man  studies  history 
fairly,  who  does  not  learn  one  of  those  lessons,  while  he  learns 
the  other ;  and,  speaking  for  myself,  if  I  had  been  called  upon 
to  make  the  great  decision  between  the  people  of  England  and 
him  who  had  had  a  fair  chance  to  prove  himself  their  king,  —  I 
hope  I  should  not  have  been  daunted  by  the  terrors  which  then 
surrounded  the  mere  name  of  Royalty.  I  hope  I  should  have 
meted  to  him  justice  for  his  every  act  of  falsehood  and  of  treason. 
I  hope  I  should  have  treated  him  as  fairly  as  I  would  have  treated 
the  meanest  soldier  in  his  army.  So  tried,  I  have  no  doubt  that 
Charles  I.  deserved  death,  if  it  were  ever  deserved  by  man  from 
the  hand  of  man. 

That  work  was  the  work  of  the  English  Independents.  The 
same  men  who  established  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts, 
in  this  act  established  the  Commonwealth  of  England.  Not 
that  the  Independents  voted,  without  distinction,  for  the  execu 
tion  of  the  King;  but  they  did  mean,  without  distinction,  to 
give  to  the  people  the  rule  of  the  Commonwealth.  I  have  no 
desire  to  overstate  the  share  which  New-Englanders,  who  had 
recrossed  to  England,  had  in  the  great  issue.  I  say  simply  that 
New  England  did,  on  a  small  scale,  what  England  then  did  on  a 
large  scale ;  and  that  the  same  men  directed  there,  as  had  sym 
pathized  here.  Here,  were  but  ten  thousand  men,  all  told  :  there, 
were  at  least  a  million.  The  population  of  England  was  at 
least  five  millions,  of  whom  one-fifth,  I  suppose,  were  men.  To 
the  assistance  of  England,  the  ten  thousand  here  lent  such 
men  as  Stephen  Winthrop,  Edward  Winslow,  John  Leverett, 
and  Robert  Sedgwick,  who  took  the  highest  military  rank ;  such 
men  as  Desborough,  Peters,  Downing,  and  Hopkins,  who  took 
high  civil  rank.  And  you  remember  it  is  said  that  of  the  first 


460  PURITAN  POLITICS  IN   ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND. 

graduates  of  Harvard  College,  the  abler  part  always  returned  to 
England  to  give  there  the  service  of  their  lives.1 

The  words  "Independence"  and  "Independent"  are  now 
favorite  words  in  America.  I  have  observed  in  later  days  that 
they  have  found  especial  favor  in  connection  with  the  word 
"  Sovereignty"  in  those  States  of  this  Union  which  fancy  they 
are  descended  from  the  cavaliers  of  England.  "  Independent  and 
Sovereign  States,"  they  say.  Favorite  words  in  America,  since 
a  Continental  Congress  of  the  United  States,  led  by  the  children 
of  Roundheads,  proclaimed  the  United  States  to  be  "  free  and 
independent."  It  is  well,  therefore,  to  remember  how  those 
words  came  into  the  English  language.  They  are  not  in  the 
English  Bible.  They  are  not  in  Shakspeare's  plays.  You  read 
there  of  Dependence.  Yes.  But  not  yet  of  Independency. 
The  word  "  Independency"  was  born  when  the  hated  Brownists 
separated  themselves  from  the  Church  of  England.  The  word 
"  Independent "  was  borrowed  from  their  vocabulary  to  designate 
the  men  who  triumphed  with  Cromwell;  and  from  that  diction 
ary  of  the  Church  the  word  was  borrowed  again  in  1776,  when 
the  United  States  of  America  became  an  independent  nation. 

I  must  not  attempt  any  further  details  of  the  triumphs  of  the 
Commonwealths  of  England  and  of  New  England.  I  have  at 
tempted  to  show  that  their  politics  were  at  heart  the  same.  The 
leaders  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England  were  the  friends  of 
New  England.  The  leaders  in  New  England  came  here,  with 
omens  which  seemed  unpromising,  to  win  a  success  which 
was  denied  at  home.  I  know  no  self-sacrifice  in  history  more 
loyal  and  gallant  than  that  of  our  great  governor,  when  he  was 
asked  to  go  back  to  England,  to  take  place  of  honor  and  com 
mand,  in  their  hopeful  beginnings ;  and  when  he  held  to  the 
little  State  in  the  wilderness,  rather  than  return  to  the  delights 

1  Johnson's  Memoranda  are  in  the  following  words,  at  the  date  1672: 
"Ministers  that  have  come  from  England,  chiefly  in  the  ten  first  years,  ninety- 
four;  of  which  returned,  twenty-seven;  died  in  the  country  (New  England),  thirty- 
six  ;  yet  alive  in  the  country,  thirty-one.  Ministers  bred  in  New  England,  and 
(excepting  about  ten)  in  Harvard  College,  one  hundred  and  thirty-two,  of  which  died 
in  the  country,  ten;  now  living,  eighty-one;  removed  to  England,  forty-one." 
(Chronological  Table  in  New-England's  Rarities,  Archreol.  Amer.  vol.  iv.  p.  233.) 
[p.  103  of  the  edition  of  1672.]  The  Triennial  Catalogue  gives  only  one  hundred 
and  one  ministers  up  to  1672  in  Harvard  College.  But  all  that  Johnson  names  did 
not  necessarily  take  the  degree  of  A.B. 


PURITAN  POLITICS  IN  ENGLAND  AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  461 

of  home  and  the  certainty  of  distinction.  It  was  that  little  State, 
of  perhaps  30,000  people,  which  treated  almost  as  an  equal  with 
the  Parliament  of  England.  In  speaking  of  that  State,  the  Long 
Parliament  speaks  of  commerce  between  "the  kingdom  of  Eng 
land  "  and  "  the  kingdom  of  New  England."  To  that  independent 
State  the  Parliament  yielded  the  privilege  of  universal  commerce, 
which  to  all  colonies  of  England  was  denied.  And  that  inde 
pendent  State,  in  the  next  session  of  the  General  Court  of  Massa 
chusetts,  returned  the  international  civility ;  and,  by  the  first 
reciprocal  treaty,  gave  to  the  kingdom  of  England  like  privileges 
to  those  which  to  "the  kingdom  of  New  England"  had  thus 
been  granted.  To  the  navigation  laws  of  that  Parliament  and 
of  Cromwell,  England  owes  this  day  the  commerce  which 
whitens  every  sea.  To  that  first  reciprocal  treaty,  New  England 
owed  the  early  maritime  development  which  has  sent  her  ships 
to  every  ocean. 

As  time  has  passed  by,  the  Parliament  of  England  has  learned 
that  Oliver  Cromwell  was  never  sovereign  in  that  island.  In 
the  line  of  statues  of  English  sovereigns  in  Parliament  House, 
the  eye  first  rests  upon  the  vacant  space  between  the  image  of 
Charles  I.  and  Charles  II.  There  is  no  Cromwell  there !  Yet,  if 
he  were  not  sovereign  of  England  for  the  ten  years  after  the 
royal  traitor  died,  it  would  be  hard  to  say  who  was.  He  was 
not  the  sovereign  of  New  England  in  those  years.  In  those 
years,  New  England  knew  no  sovereign  but  her  people.  But 
he  was  the  friend  of  New  England,  and  the  friend  of  her  rulers. 
They  loved  him,  they  believed  in  him,  they  honored  him.  He 
represented  the  policy  which,  for  ten  years,  triumphed  in  Old 
England,  and  which  has  triumphed  in  New  England  till  this 
time.  Massachusetts  is  about  to  acknowledge  her  debt  to 
Winthrop,  which  she  can  never  pay,  by  erecting  his  statue  in 
the  National  Capitol.  There  it  is  to  stand,  first  among  the 
founders  of  America ;  first,  where  Virginia  Dare  and  John  Smith 
and  George  Calvert,  and  even  Roger  Williams  and  William 
Penn,  are  second.  When  that  obligation  is  thus  acknowledged, 
Massachusetts  may  well  erect  in  her  own  capitol,  face  to  face 
with  Chantrey's  statue  of  George  Washington,  the  statue  which 
England  has  not  reared,  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  It  may  bear  this 
inscription :  — 


462  PURITAN   POLITICS   IN   ENGLAND   AND   NEW   ENGLAND. 


OLIVER   CROMWELL. 

This  man  believed  in  Independency. 

He  was  the  sovereign  of  England  for  ten  years. 

He  was  the  friend  of  New  England  through  his  life. 

This  statue  stands  here  till  the  England  which  we  love,  and  from 
which  we  were  born,  shall  know  who  her  true  heroes  were. 


EDUCATION    IN    MASSACHUSETTS. 

LEGISLATION    AND     HISTORY. 


BY    GEO.    B.    EMERSON. 


EDUCATION    IN    MASSACHUSETTS. 

LEGISLATION    AND     HISTORY. 


r  I  ^HE  subject  assigned  to  me  by  the  Committee  of  the  His- 
-*•  torical  Society,  is  Education  in  Massachusetts,  —  Legisla 
tion  and  History.  I  shall  endeavor  to  show,  as  far  as  I  can  do 
it  in  a  single  lecture,  what  Massachusetts  has  done  for  the  ad 
vancement  and  diffusion  of  education,  and  hojsz:  she  has  done  it. 

In  1636,  three,  or,  at  the  utmost,  four  thousand  emigrants, 
mostly  from  the  mild  southern  counties  of  Old  England,  were 
dwelling  in  sixteen  towns  and  hamlets,  on  the  sandy  shores  of 
Massachusetts  Bay.  They  were  not  yet  hardened  to  the  fierce 
extremes  of  a  New-England  climate,  and  had  suffered  and  were 
suffering  terribly  from  the  heats  of  summer,  the  blustering  chilly 
winds  of  spring,  and  the  cold  and  snow-storms  of  winter,  in 
their  hastily  built  log-cabins,  and  wretched  huts  and  hovels,  no 
better,  often,  than  the  wigwams  of  the  savage  Indians.  They 
were  the  most  religious  people  under  heaven;  yet  their  only 
place  of  worship  in  Boston  was  built  with  mud-walls  and  a 
roof  thatched  with  straw.  They  had  been  exposed  to  scarcity 
of  all  kinds,  sometimes  nearly  approaching  to  absolute  famine. 
When  the  large  colony  led  by  Governor  "Winthrop  reached 
Salem,  in  June,  1630,  they  found  that,  during  the  previous 
winter,  more  than  a  fourth  part  of  their  predecessors  had  died, 
and  many  of  the  survivors  were  ill ;  and,  of  the  new-comers,  a 
fifth  part  fell  victims  to  disease  before  the  end  of  autumn. 

Yet,  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Records  of  the  General  Court, 
we  read,  — 

"  At  a  Court  holden  Sept.  8,  1636,  and  continued  by  adjourn 
ment  to  the  28th  of  the  eighth  month,  October,  1636,  the 

30 


466  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

Court  agreed  to  give  .£400  towards  a  school  or  college;  £200 
to  be  paid  next  year,  and  .£200  when  the  work  is  finished ;  and 
the  next  Court  to  appoint  where  and  what  building."  At  a 
General  Court  held  at  Newtown,  on  the  2d  of  the  ninth  month, 
1637,  "  The  college  is  ordered  to  be  at  Newtown." 

The  people  of  Massachusetts  at  that  time  were  poor,  with  all 
the  hardships  of  new  settlers  in  a  savage  country,  clearing  up 
the  forests,  building  houses  and  barns  and  churches,  enlarging 
their  pastures,  and  bringing  the  earth  into  cultivation. 

Four  hundred  pounds  sterling,  then,  would  correspond  to 
$2,000.  This  would  be  a  grant  of  fifty  cents  for  each  individual 
of  the  four  thousand  inhabitants,  equal  to  a  grant,  at  the  same 
rate,  for  each  individual  of  the  present  population,  say  one 
million  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  of  8625,000.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  a  dollar  then  was  equivalent  to  several 
dollars  now;  and  that  Massachusetts  then  was  one  of  the 
poorest  States  in  the  world,  and  is  now  one  of  the  richest,  —  its 
valuation  in  1865  being  more  than  one  thousand  millions. 
Considering  these  things,  we  may  well  conclude  with  Dr.  Dwight, 
"  It  is  questionable  whether  a  more  honorable  specimen  of 
public  spirit  can  be  found  in  the  history  of  mankind."1  The 
name  of  the  town  was  soon  afterwards  changed  from  Newtown 
to  Cambridge,  "  a  grateful  tribute  to  the  transatlantic  literary 
parent  of  many  of  the  first  emigrants,  and  indicative  of  the  high 
destiny  to  which  they  intended  the  institution  should  aspire." ' 

"In  the  year  1638,"  says  President  Quincy,  "  while  they  were  only 
contemplating  its  commencement,  John  Harvard,  a  dissenting  clergyman 
of  England,  resident  at  Charlestown,  died,  and  bequeathed  one-half  of 
his  whole  property,  and  his  entire  library,  to  the  institution.  An  instance 
of  benevolence  thus  striking  and  timely,  proceeding  from  one  who  had 
been  scarcely  a  year  in  the  country,  was  accepted  by  our  Fathers  as  an 
omen  of  divine  favor.  With  prayer  and  thanksgiving  they  immediately 
commenced  the  seminary,  and  conferred  upon  it  the  name  of  Harvard."  3 

What  was  done  in  the  endowment  of  Harvard  College  has 
been  imitated  a  thousand  times  since.  The  beneficence  of  the 
State  has  been  enlarged  and  multiplied  by  the  beneficence  of 

1  Dwight's  Travels  in  New  England,  vol.  i.  p.  481,  as  quoted  by  President  Quincy, 
in  History  of  Harvard  University,  vol.  i.  p.  8. 

2  Quincy's  Hist.  H.  U.,  vol.  i.  p.  9.  3  Id.,  pp.  9,  10. 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  467 

individuals.  The  State  gives  £400  for  the  founding  of  a  school 
at  Cambridge;  John  Harvard  adds  £800.  The  towns  through 
out  the  colony  contribute  according  to,  or  far  beyond,  their 
means ;  individuals  with  wonderful  munificence.  In  the  course 
of  eight  years,  £269  18s.  8d.  were  given  by  the  towns  in  the 
four  colonies,1  for  the  benefit  of  the  officers  and  students  in  the 
college.  Of  this  sum,  Boston  gave  nearly  <£85;  Charlestown, 
£37  16s.  2d.]  Lynn,  £1.  In  1654,  Rev.  Mr.  Allen,  of  Dedham, 
gave  two  cows,  valued  at  £9.  In  1656,  Richard  Dana,  in  cotton 
cloth,  9s.]  a  widow  in  Roxbury,  £1;  Richard  Saltonstall,  £104. 
The  inhabitants  of  Eleuthera,  one  of  the  Bahama  Islands,  "  out 
of  their  poverty,  in  testimony  of  their  gratitude  towards  the 
inhabitants  of  Massachusetts,  for  necessaries  sent  them  in  their 
extreme  want,"  £124.  This  shows  that  charity  to  strangers 
began  early  in  Massachusetts.  The  island  of  Eleuthera  was  then 
farther  off  than  Ireland  or  Crete  is  now. 

In  1669,  of  £2,697  5s.  paid  by  the  inhabitants  in  contributions 
for  erecting  a  new  college  building,  the  town  of  Portsmouth  gave 
£60  a  year,  for  seven  years;  of  which  Richard  Cutts  subscribed 
£20  per  annum;  and  Boston  £800,  of  which  Sir  Thomas  Temple 
gave  £100,  and  Benjamin  Gibbs  £50;  Salem,  £130  2s.  2c?.,  of 
which  Rev.  Mr.  Higginson  subscribed  £5,  Mr.  William  Brown 
£40,  Mr.  Edmund  Batter  £20;  the  town  of  Hull,  £3  18s.;  Scar 
borough  in  Maine,  £2  9s.  6d.:2  so  universal  was  the  generous 
feeling  towards  the  college. 

The  amount  of  donations  in  money  during  the  seventeenth 
century  was  £6,134  16s.  10c?.  Then  there  were  large  gifts  in 
land  and  books.  The  poor  gave  according  to  their  ability; 
Richard  Harr,  one  great  salt,  and  one  small  trencher  salt ;  Mr. 
Vane,  a  fruit-dish,  sugar-spoon,  and  silver-tipped  jug  ;  Mr.  Wilson, 
one  pewter  flagon ;  Sir  Thomas  Temple,  one  pair  of  globes ; 
John  Willet,  a  bell;  Edward  Page,  one  silver  goblet;  the  farm 
ers,  gifts  in  corn,  from  many  bushels  down  to  a  single  peck. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  in  the  history  of  Harvard 
College  is  the  fact  that,  in  all  the  constitutions  of  the  college, 
there  is  nothing  illiberal  or  sectarian,  nothing  to  check  the  freest 
pursuit  of  truth  in  theological  opinions,  and  in  every  thing  else ; 

1  Plymouth,  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  and  Massachusetts. 

2  Quincy's  H.  C.,  Appendix,  vol.  i.  p.  508. 


468  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

and  this,  too,  while  the  founders  of  the  college  were  severely  and 
strictly  Orthodox,  often  exclusive  in  their  own  opinions,  and  that 
their  object  was  unquestionably  to  provide  for  the  thorough  edu 
cation  of  ministers  of  the  gospel  of  like  views  with  themselves. 
Whether  it  was  that  they  had  confidence  that  free  inquiry  would 
lead  others  to  the  same  conclusions  it  had  led  themselves ;  or 
that  there  were  differences  of  opinion  among  them,  which  pre 
vented  the  framing  of  a  declaration  of  faith  that  should  satisfy 
all ;  or  that  they  were  beginning  to  find  that  a  declaration  of 
faith,  while  it  excluded  those  who  honestly  differed,  could  never 
exclude  hypocrites ;  or  that  they  had  a  profound  and  reverent 
belief  that  the  living  God  would,  in  all  future  time,  be  near  the 
souls  of  all  true  and  earnest  men,  to  enlighten  and  guide  them ; 
or  whether  it  was  by  a  special  providence  that  we  have  been 
secured  from  what  has  been  elsewhere  a  plague  and  a  snare,  —  we 
know  not :  we  only  know  that  no  subscription  or  declaration  of 
faith  has  ever  been  required  from  any  officer  of  the  college. 
The  device  on  the  first  seal  was  three  open  books,  with  VERITAS 
upon  them :  Search  for  THE  TRUTH  everywhere ;  for  a  college  or 
school,  the  noblest  and  best  motto  possible.  This  was  succeeded 
by  In  Christi  Gloriam,  —  to  the  glory  of  Christ;  and  this  soon 
after  by  the  present  motto,  Christo  et  Ecclesice,  —  to  Christ  and 
the  Church. 

How  earnest  and  sincere  our  Puritan  Fathers  were  in  doing 
all  that  could  be  fairly  done  to  secure  soundness  in  the  faith,  is 
shown  by  the  uniform  character  of  their  legislation. 

In  the  Records  of  the  Court  for  May  3,  1654,  we  read, — 

"  Forasmuch  as  it  greatly  concerns  the  welfare  of  this  country  that  the 
youth  thereof  be  educated  not  only  in  good  literature  but  sound  doctrine, 
this  Court  doth  therefore  commend  it  to  the  serious  consideration  and 
special  care  of  the  officers  of  the  college  and  the  selectmen  of  the  several 
towns,  not  to  admit  or  suffer  any  such  to  be  continued  in  the  office  or  place 
of  teaching,  educating,  or  instructing  of  youth  or  children,  in  the  college 
or  schools,  that  have  manifested  themselves  unsound  in  the  faith  or  scan 
dalous  in  their  lives,  and  not  giving  due  satisfaction  according  to  the  rules 
of  Christ." 

The  conditions  for  admission  at  Harvard  College,  established 
by  President  Dunster,  for  the  year  1642  and  onward,  are  as 
follows :  — 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  469 

1.  "  Whoever  shall  be  able  to  read  Cicero,  or  any  other  such  like  classical 
author,  at  sight,  and,  correctly  and  without  assistance,  to  speak  and  write 
Latin,  in  prose  and  verse,  and  to  inflect  exactly  the  paradigms  of  Greek 
nouns  and  verbs,  has  a  right  to  expect  to  be  admitted  into  the  college  ; 
and  no  one  may  claim  admission  without  these  qualifications." 

And,  throughout  their  course,  the  scholars  were  not,  within  the 
college  limits,  upon  any  pretext,  to  use  the  vernacular,  unless 
when  called  to  deliver  an  oration,  or  some  other  public  exercise, 
in  English.1 

From  this  it  appears  that  the  standard  for  admission  was 
higher  than  it  has  been  since.  I  believe  that,  not  comparatively, 
but  absolutely,  boys  were  better  fitted  for  college  then  than  they 
are  now.  They  had  better  teachers.  Few  teachers  at  present 
are  able,  by  their  own  example  and  usage,  to  teach  boys  to  speak 
the  Latin  language  readily  and  correctly.  Few  are  themselves 
able  to  read  Cicero  or  Tacitus  at  sight.  A  great  mistake,  one 
of  the  greatest  possible,  has  been  made,  in  relinquishing  the  mode 
of  teaching  the  Latin  language  at  that  time  prevalent,  I  believe, 
in  England  and  throughout  Germany,  as  well  as  in  this  coun 
try.  For,  unquestionably,  the  only  sure  way  of  learning  a 
language  rapidly,  pleasantly,  satisfactorily,  and  so  as  to  be  a 
permanent  acquisition,  is  the  natural  way ;  that  is,  as  a  spoken 
language.  In  consequence  of  this  change,  the  character  of  the 

1  Scholares  vernacula  lingua  intra  collegii  limites,  nullo  pretextu,  utuntor,  nisi 
ad  orationem,  aut  aliud  aliquod  exercitiura  publicum  Anglice  habendum  evocati 
fuerint.  (President  Dunster's  Laws  and  Rules,  1642-46,  in  Quincy's  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p. 
678). 

"  The  learned  and  excellent  Henry  Dunster,"  says  Dr.  Palfrey,  "  when  he  accepted 
this  great  charge"  (of  the  Presidency  of  the  college),  "had  just  arrived  from  Eng 
land,  having  been  there  a  non-conformist  minister,  after  receiving  an  education  at 
Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge."  (Palfrey,  vol.  ii.  p.  49.)  He  drew  up  the  Laws 
and  Rules  of  the  college,  and  probably  settled  the  course  of  study,  according  to  the 
practice  of  the  English  Universities  at  that  time.  It  consisted,  in  a  large  degree,  of 
Latin,  Greek,  and  English,  with  something  of  Hebrew,  Syriac,  and  Chaldee,  and 
also  of  divinity.  It  included  Arithmetic,  Geometry,  Physics,  Logic,  Ethics,  Politics, 
and  Rhetoric.  In  the  Saturday  afternoons  of  summer,  lectures  were  given  on  the 
nature  of  plants  ;  in  winter,  on  history.  Much  time  was  spent  in  discussion,  and 
still  more  in  composition.  ("New-England's  First  Fruits,"  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  vol.  i. 
pp.  245-6.) 

Few  persons,  if  any,  have  done  so  much  for  education  and  discipline,  in  America, 
as  President  Dunster.  See  many  curious  particulars  of  his  life,  opinions,  and  death, 
and  appearance,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  body,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  his 
death,  in  the  second  of  the  instructive  and  delightful  volumes  of  Dr.  Palfrey's  History. 


470  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

professed  teacher  has  been  declining,  perhaps  continually,  until 
the  beginning  of  this  century. 

In  other  respects,  also,  the  boys  were  better  fitted  for  college 
than  they  recently  have  been. 

There  were  no  cities.  The  greater  part  of  the  people  lived  in 
the  country,  nearly  all  on  farms.  In  Boston  there  was  little  room 
for  farms,  and  not  much  for  gardens ;  but  many  of  the  inhabi 
tants  had  gardens  and  farms  on  the  islands  of  the  Bay  and  at 
Muddy  River,  now  Brookline,  where  their  herds  were  kept.  The 
boys  spent  most  of  their  time  in  the  fields  and  forests  and  along 
the  rivers  and  the  sea,  hunting  bears  and  deer,  trapping  foxes, 
shooting  wild  turkeys,  wild  geese,  and  wild  ducks ;  or  fishing, 
riding,  driving,  swimming,  rowing,  and  sailing;  or  at  work  with 
those  who  were  laying  out  roads  through  the  woods,  digging 
wells  and  ditches,  making  walls,  and  fences  against  the  wolves, 
building  houses,  barns,  fortifications,  churches,  ships,  mills,  boats, 
and  ships,  laying  out  and  cultivating  gardens,  planting  orchards, 
and  engaged  in  all  the  labors  of  husbandry.  They  thus  became 
hardened  to  the  climate,  and  gained  good  constitutions  and 
health,  and  moreover  became  acquainted  with  natural  objects,— 
rocks  and  soils  ;  animals,  wild  and  tame,  savage  and  civilized ;  the 
trees  and  shrubs  of  the  woods,  and  the  flowers  and  herbs  of  the 
gardens  and  fields ;  and  saw  the  powers  of  water  and  of  wind, 
and  felt  the  effects  of  sunshine  and  cold  and  all  the  forces  of  the 
atmosphere.  The  elder  boys  belonged  to  the  train-bands,  which, 
under  able  officers,  were  drilled  —  not  over  twice  or  thrice  a  week, 
the  law  provides  —  to  the  use  of  the  musket,  the  sword  and  the 
spear.  Such  were  their  summer  occupations. 

In  winter,  they  helped  to  clear  the  woods  and  cut  down  the 
forest-trees,  sledded  the  logs  to  the  wood-pile  and  the  timber  to 
the  mills,  and  assisted  at  first  in  hewing  it,  afterward,  in  sawing  it 
into  beams,  posts,  joists,  planks,  boards,  clapboards,  and  shingles, 
or  squaring  it  and  building  it  directly  into  houses.  The  winter 
evenings,  on  those  solitary  farms,  were  probably  spent  in  read 
ing, —  an  easy  and  pleasant  thing,  before  the  existence  of  theatres, 
balls,  concerts,  and  dram-shops.  And  they  doubtless  had  their 
huskings  and  other  merry-makings. 

Has  any  system  been  devised  to  take  the  place  of  this,  and 
give  the  young  man,  in  a  higher  degree,  full  possession  of  all  his 


LEGISLATION   AND  HISTORY.  471 

powers  and  faculties  of  body  and  rnind,  or  to  give  him,  in  the 
same  degree,  the  masculine  qualities  of  hardy  self-reliance  with 
cautiousness,  manly  courage  with  coolness,  resolution  with 
patience,  and  power  of  endurance  with  habits  of  strenuous  and 
cheerful  labor  ?  What  better  discipline  have  we  devised  or  are 
we  devising  for  the  drawing  out  and  training  these  manly  quali 
ties? 

A  few  men,  whom  we  have  known,  have  been  obliged  by  force 
of  circumstances,  to  approach  this  heroic  early  education.  And 
it  may  be  a  fair  question,  Would  Mark  Hopkins,  Francis  Way- 
land,  Daniel  Webster,  Jared  Sparks,  Cornelius  Feltori,  Thomas 
Hill,  have  been  finer  specimens  of  humanity,  or  even  better 
scholars  and  teachers,  if  they  had  been  put,  at  seven,  into  schools, 
and  kept  there  ten  months  of  every  year,  till  they  entered  college 
at  sixteen,  instead  of  giving  their  early  years  to  the  labors  of  the 
farm,  the  forest,  and  the  workshop  ? 

Milton  calls  "  a  complete  and  generous  education  that  which 
fits  a  man  to  perform  justly,  skilfully,  and  magnanimously,  all 
the  offices,  both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and  of  war."  This 
primitive,  heroic  boyhood  was  not  only  a  true  preparation  for  the 
offices  of  a  peaceful,  private  life,  for  the  duties  of  town  officer, 
magistrate,  and  representative  to  the  .  General  Court,  and  for 
those  of  privates  and  officers,  in  the  wars  always  threatening 
from  the  Indians  around,  and  often  from  the  French  at  the  North 
and  the  Dutch  on  the  South ;  but  it  was  the  best  preparation  for 
the  studies  of  the  college,  as  it  gave  the  student,  for  the  object 
of  his  thoughts  while  engaged  in  those  studies,  instead  of  mere 
words,  the  facts  of  nature,  real  things  and  their  properties  and 
relations. 

Everybody  is  now  ready  to  admit  the  important  place  which 
natural  and  physical  science  should  have  in  a  liberal  education ; 
but  all  are  not  aware  that  such  science,  to  be  real,  must  be 
founded  on  personal  observation.  These  boys  wrere  laying  such 
a  foundation.  A  boy  engaged  in  stoning  a  well,  in  raising 
stones  for  a  wall,  or  in  drawing  water  from  the  well  by  an  old 
fashioned  well-pole,  was  studying  the  properties  of  the  lever.  In 
splitting  logs,  he  become  acquainted  with  the  wedge ;  in  making 
roads,  with  the  inclined  plane.  In  helping  to  lay  out  a  farm, 
with  a  surveyor's  chain  and  compass,  so  as  to  fix,  justly  and 


472  EDUCATION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

accurately,  the  bounds  between  neighbor  and  neighbor,  he  got 
the  first  elementary  ideas  which  lie  at  the  very  foundation  of 
geometry,  and  a  feeling  of  the  importance  of  doing  justice, 
at  the  same  time.  In  selecting,  hewing,  and  shaping  the  differ 
ent  trees  for  all  the  purposes  of  the  primitive  essential  arts, 
he  became  acquainted  with  the  strength,  elasticity,  hardness,  te 
nacity,  and  other  properties,  of  all  kinds  of  wood.  Even  in  his 
play,  he  was  still  at  his  studies.  In  rowing,  he  was  studying  the 
lever ;  in  sculling,  the  resolution  of  forces, — feeling  as  well  as  see 
ing.  When  he  hoisted  his  sail  by  pulling  at  a  rope  passing 
round  a  truck  at  the  head  of  his  mast,  he  was  studying  the  ele 
ment  of  the  pulley ;  when,  to  raise  the  sail  to  the  utmost,  he 
pulled  out  the  middle  of  that  rope  fastened  at  the  foot,  to  haul 
taut  and  belay,  he  was  learning  the  properties  of  the  rope- 
machine.  When,  sitting  in  the  stern  of  his  boat,  he  trimmed  his 
sail  to  the  varying  wind,  on  a  narrow,  winding  creek,  or  on  Nepon- 
set  River,  or  Charles,  obliged  often  to  come  as  near  as  possible  to 
the  wind,  he  was  studying  the  resolution  of  forces,  in  the  most 
favorable  position  in  which  they  can  be  studied.  When  for  the 
well-pole  he  substituted  the  windlass,  and  with  it  drew  water  from 
the  well,  he  was  learning  the  nature,  by  observing  the  uses,  of 
the  wheel  and  axle.  When  he  dug  a  ditch  or  assisted  in  build 
ing  a  dam  and  arranging  a  flume  and  a  gate  for  the  water-power, 
he  was  studying  hydrostatics  and  hydraulics.  Arranging  the 
stones  for  grinding  corn,  he  was  studying  the  combination  of 
wheels ;  and,  setting  the  stones  to  grind,  the  centrifugal  force. 
The  saw-mill  and  the  wind-mill,  when  they  were  introduced, 
showed  him  machinery  in  more  complicated  action.1 

Then  again,  in  those  early  days,  there  were  no  spelling-books 
nor  English  grammars  for  children  to  waste  their  time  upon. 
The  deluge  of  children's  books  had  not  begun.  Children  learned 
their  letters  from  verses  in  the  Bible,  —  from  those  sublimest  of  all 
sentences  :  "  In  the  beginning,  God  created  the  heaven  and  the 
earth  ; "  "  and  God  said,  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light." 

1  I  perfectly  well  remember  standing,  when  a  child,  in  a  still  morning,  on  the 
bank  of  a  river,  and  watching  a  man  engaged  in  chopping  wood,  at  a  distance,  on 
the  other  side.  I  heard  every  stroke  of  his  axe,  but  I  heard  it  some  little  time  after 
it  was  struck.  It  was  my  first  lesson  in  acoustics  and  optics.  I  saw  the  slowness 
of  the  motion  of  sound  compared  with  the  velocity  of  that  of  light. 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  473 

Boys  and  girls  were  obliged  to  read  the  few  books  they  had, 
which  were  often  the  most  excellent  that  we  have,  again  and 
again,  till  they  knew  them  thoroughly,  almost  by  heart.  They 
became,  of  necessity,  familiar  with  the  Gospels,  with  the  beau 
tiful  histories  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  glorious  poetry  of  the 
prophets,  of  Job,  and  the  Psalms,  the  profound  wisdom  of 
Solomon  and  the  divine  wisdom  of  the  apostles.1  The  little 
time  given  to  the  Latin  language  was  spent  in  learning  and 
using  the  words  essential  to  conversation  ;  and  in  studying  the 
language  of  Cicero  and  Virgil,  instead  of  the  unintelligible 
generalizations  of  grammar,  what  John  Milton  calls  "  the  most 
intellective  abstractions  of  logic  and  metaphysics,"  so  commonly 
begun  with  at  the  present  day. 

What  a  pleasant  way  of  learning  a  language  must  that  have 
been !  —  Walking  about  with  the  teacher  over  the  farm,  in  the 
barn-yard,  and  in  the  woods;  and  learning  from  him  how  to 
speak,  in  Latin,  of  all  they  saw.  How  easy  for  persons  so 
taught  to  continue  the  use  of  the  language,  in  college  !  and 
how  deeply  fixed  in  the  memory  must  all  the  usual  forms  of  the 
language  thus  become !  Whoever  has  had  the  good  fortune 
to  learn  any  modern  language  by  hearing  and  speaking  it 
alone  for  a  few  years,  must  know  how  imperfect  and  super 
ficial,  in  comparison,  is  the  knowledge  obtained  from  books  only. 

Such  was  the  necessary  but  real  and  noble  preparation  for 
college  which  was  given  to  nearly  all  the  boys  in  Massachusetts 
purposing  to  receive  the  highest  education  of  the  time.  Has 
any  thing  better  been  yet  introduced  to  take  the  place  of  such  a 
preparation  ?  Does  the  vast  time  given  to  arithmetic,  destined 
to  be  never  used ;  or  the  innumerable  lessons  in  geography, 
destined  to  be  speedily  forgotten ;  or  the  volumes  of  choice 
and  exquisite  selections  from  the  best  and  finest  poetry  and 
prose,  most  of  it  wholly  beyond  the  capacity  of  those  who  are  to 
read  them,  —  give  a  better  preparation  ?  Are  these  an  adequate 
substitute  for  readings  from  the  book  of  Nature,  from  the  works 
and  word  of  God  ? 

1  The  English  language  is  spoken  by  the  common  people  of  New  England  far 
better  than  it  is  anywhere  else.  This  is  owing,  I  doubt  not,  to  the  fact,  that  they 
have  always  been  familiar  with  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  in  our  beautiful  trans 
lation. 


474  EDUCATION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

In  the  year  1847,  the  President  of  this  Society,  —  I  heard  it 
from  his  own  lips,  and  know  that  he  will  pardon  my  telling  the 
story,  —  himself  a  lineal  descendant  of  John  Winthrop,  under 
whose  administration  the  grant  I  have  read,  and  the  laws 
I  am  going  to  read,  were  passed,  was  sitting  in  the  diplomatic 
gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons,  with  Sir  Robert  Peel,  to 
whom  a  letter  from  Edward  Everett  had  introduced  him,  engaged 
in  conversation  ;  when  Sir  Robert  suddenly  interrupted  himself, 
and  said,  "  I  must  now  leave  you,  as  I  see  that  Macaulay  is 
going  to  speak,  and  I  always  want  to  hear  what  he  says."  He 
left  him ;  and  our  friend  presently  heard,  among  other  good 
things  from  Macaulay,  — 

"  I  say,  therefore,  that  the  education  of  the  people  ought  to~Be  the  first 
concern  of  a  State.  .  .  .  This  is  my  deliberate  conviction ;  and  in  this 
opinion  I  am  fortified  by  thinking,  that  it  is  also  the  opinion  of  all  the 
great  legislators,  of  all  the  great  statesmen,  of  all  the  great  political 
philosophers,  of  all  ages  and  of  all  nations.  .  .  .  Sir,  it  is  the  opinion  of 
all  the  greatest  champions  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  in  the  Old  World 
and  in  the  New  ;  and  of  none  —  I  hesitate  not  to  say  it  —  more  emphati 
cally  than  of  those  whose  names  are  held  in  the  highest  estimation 
by  the  Protestant  Nonconformists  of  England.  Assuredly,  if  there  be 
any  class  of  men  whom  the  Protestant  Nonconformists  of  England  respect 
more  highly  than  another,  —  if  any  whose  memory  they  hold  in  deeper 
veneration,  —  it  is  that  class  of  men,  of  high  spirit  and  unconquerable 
principles,  who,  in  the  days  of  Archbishop  Laud,  preferred  leaving  their 
native  country,  and  living  in  the  savage  solitudes  of  a  wilderness,  rather 
than  to  live  in  a  land  of  prosperity  and  plenty,  where  they  could  not  enjoy 
the  privilege  of  worshipping  their  Maker  freely,  according  to  the  dictates 
of  their  conscience.  Those  men,  illustrious  for  ever  in  history,  were  the 
founders  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts ;  but,  though  their  love 
of  freedom  of  conscience  was  illimitable  and  indestructible,  they  could  see 
nothing  servile  or  degrading  in  the  principle,  that  the  State  should  take 
upon  itself  the  charge  of  the  education  of  the  people.  In  the  year  1642," 
[should  he  not  have  said,  1G47  ?]  "  they  passed  their  first  legislative  enact 
ment  on  this  subject ;  in  the  preamble  of  which  they  distinctly  pledged 
themselves  to  this  principle,  that  education  was  a  matter  of  the  deepest 
possible  importance  and  the  greatest  possible  interest  to  all  nations  and  to 
all  communities  ;  and  that,  as  such,  it  was,  in  an  eminent  degree,  de 
serving  of  the  peculiar  attention  of  the  State."1 

l  Macaulay's  Speeches,  vol.  ii.  pp.  334  and  335,  ed.  of  Redfield,  New  York,  1853. 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  475 

That  preamble  is  in  these  words  :  — 

"  It  being  one  chief  project  of  the  old  deluder,  Satan,  to  keep  men  from 
the  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  as,  in  former  times,  by  keeping  them  in 
an  unknown  tongue,  so,  in  these  latter  times,  by  persuading  from  the  use 
of  tongues,  that  so  at  least  the  true  sense  and  meaning  of  the  original 
might  be  clouded  by  false  gloss  of  saint-seeming  deceivers ;  —  now,  that 
learning  may  not  be  buried  in  the  grave  of  our  fathers,  in  the  Church  and 
Commonwealth,  the  Lord  assisting  our  endeavors,"  —  and  here  follows 
the  law  :  — 

"It  is  therefore  ordered,  that  every  township  in  this  jurisdiction,  after 
the  Lord  hath  increased  them  to  the  number  of  fifty  householders,  shall 
then  forthwith  appoint  one  within  their  town  to  teach  all  such  children  as 
shall  resort  to  him,  to  write  and  read,  whose  wages  shall  be  paid,  either 
by  the  parents  or  masters  of  such  children,  or  by  the  inhabitants  in  gen 
eral,  by  way  of  supply,  as  the  major  part  of  those  that  order  the  pruden 
tials  of  the  town  shall  appoint,  provided,  those  that  send  their  children  be 
not  oppressed  by  paying  much  more  than  they  can  have  them  taught  for 
in  other  towns ;  and  it  is  further  ordered,  that,  where  any  town  shall 
increase  to  the  number  of  one  hundred  families  or  householders,  they 
shall  set  up  a  grammar  school,  the  master  thereof  being  able  to  instruct 
youth  so  far  as  they  may  be  fitted  for  the  university,  provided  that,  if  any 
town  neglect  the  performance  hereof  above  one  year,  that  every  such 
town  shall  pay  £5  to  the  next  school,  till  they  shall  perform  this  order."  l 

A  grammar  school  was  then  understood  to  be  a  school  in 
which  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages  were  taught. 

In  1683,  Oct.  10,  we  read,  "  The  Court  doth  order  that  when 
ever  a  town  has  five  hundred  families,  it  shall  support  two 
grammar  schools  and  two  writing  schools.'7 

On  June  14,  1642,  the  following  law  was  passed : 2  - 

"This  Court,  taking  into  consideration  the  great  neglect  of  many 
parents  and  masters,  in  training  up  their  children  in  learning  and  labor, 
and  other  employments  which  may  be  profitable  to  the  Commonwealth, 
do  hereby  order  and  decree,  that  in  every  town  the  chosen  men  appointed 
for  managing  the  prudential  affairs  of  the  same  shall  henceforth  stand 
charged  with  the  care  of  the  redress  of  this  evil ;  .  .  .  and,  for  this  end, 

1  Mass.  Records,  Nov.  11,  1047,  vol.  ii.  p.  203. 

2  I  had  considerable  doubt,  and  still  have,  whether  this  law  or  the  one  of  1647 
were  the  one  referred  to  by  Macaulay ;  but,  as  this  law  really  has  no  preamble,  but 
only  a  short  introduction  in  no  degree  remarkable,  and,  as  it  is  almost  wholly  upon 
the  matter  of  apprenticeship,  I  have  concluded  that  it  must  have  been  to  the  other 
that  he  had  reference. 


476  EDUCATION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

they,  or  the  greater  number  of  them,  shall  have  power  to  take  account, 
from  time  to  time,  of  all  parents  and  masters,  and  of  their  children,  con 
cerning  the  calling  and  employment  of  their  children,  especially  of  their 
ability  to  read  and  understand  the  principles  of  religion,  and  the  capital 
laws  of  this  country,  and  to  impose  fines  upon  such  as  shall  refuse  to 
render  such  accounts  to  them  when  they  shall  be  required ;  and  they  shall 
have  power,  with  consent  of  any  court  or  the  magistrate,  to  put  forth 
apprentices  the  children  of  such  as  they  shall  find  not  to  be  able  and  fit 
to  employ  and  bring  them  up ;  ...  and  for  their  better  performance  of 
this  trust  committed  to  them,  they  may  divide  the  town  amongst  them, 
appointing  to  every  one  of  the  said  townsmen  a  certain  number  of  families 
to  have  special  oversight  of.  They  are  also  to  provide  that  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  materials,  as  hemp,  flax,  &c.,  may  be  raised  in  the  several 
towns,  and  tools  and  implements  provided  for  working  out  the  same." 1 

Next  to  the  law  providing  free  public  schools  for  all,  this  law 
providing  for  the  accustoming  of  all  children  to  labor,  and  their 
proper  and  sufficient  training  in  some  useful  employment,  shows 
most  strikingly  the  wisdom  and  forethought  of  these  men  of 
Massachusetts.  The  observance  and  the  perfecting  of  the 
former  law,  and  the  copying  of  it  by  other  States,  have  been  an 
immeasurable  blessing  to  the  world.  The  neglect  of  this  latter 
law  has  been  an  equally  vast  misfortune.2 

A  very  large  part  of  the  poverty  found  now  among  the  natives 
of  New  England  may  be  traced  to  this  neglect.  A  great  deal  of 
the  crime  has  this  same  cause.  To  this  neglect,  more  probably 
than  to  any  other  cause,  is  due  the  great  number  of  persons  setting 
up  in  business,  without  any  skill  or  knowledge  or  experience  or 
any  other  qualifications,  and  soon  failing ;  —  ninety-seven  per  cent 
in  the  principal  street  in  Boston,  as  was  found  a  few  years  ago  to 
have  been  the  case  for  many  years.  To  this  neglect  is  owing  that 
great  army  of  middle-men,  who,  even  now,  are  preying  like  vam- 

1  I  have  not  quoted  the  whole  of  this  law.    It  contains,  at  some  length,  farther 
provisions  for  the  certain  and  safe  employment  of  children  of  both  sexes,  in  things 
useful  to  the  Commonwealth. 

2  My  own  opinion  is,  that  the  education  of  no  girl  or  boy  ought  to  be  considered 
finished,  even  so  far  as  common  schools  are  concerned,  who  has  only  had  his  mental, 
moral,  and  spiritual  faculties  developed,  and  knowledge  given,  principles  fixed,  and 
reverential  habits  formed.      His  bodily  powers  ought  also  to  be  exercised  upon 
something  useful,  at  every  step  in  his  course.     This  might  be  done  without  any  loss 
to  his  intellectual  nature,  and  with  immeasurable  benefit  to  his  physical.     Such  an 
education  would  make  every  work  and  duty  of  after  life  more  easy  and  pleasant. 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  477 

pires  upon  the  poor  in  this  town  and  this  country.  The  present 
very  intelligent  warden  of  the  State  Prison,  Gideon  Haynes, 
informs  me,  that  "  of  the  convicts  committed  to  this  prison  in 
the  last  forty  years,  over  eighty  per  cent  had  no  trades."  "  I 
cannot  with  any  certainty,"  he  adds,  "  say  how  many  of  that 
number  might  have  been  saved  by  learning  a  trade ;  but  from 
the  fact  that  all  received,  who  were  capable  of  learning,  have 
during  the  above  period  been  taught  one,  and  that  only  nine  per 
cent  of  the  number  have  been  recommitted,  I  am  satisfied  that 
at  least  fifty  per  cent  might  have  been  saved  by  a  good  trade." 

Those  legislators  sought,  not  only  to  prevent  ignorance  of  law 
and  of  duty  by  universal  education,  but  to  prevent  poverty  and 
crime  by  universal  intelligent  industry. 

A  considerable  portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  all  the  large  cities 
of  the  Atlantic  coast  are  paupers.  Here  we  have  one  cause.  Is 
it  too  late  to  take  measures  to  prevent  much  of  the  poverty  and 
crime  of  Massachusetts,  by  laws  requiring  every  child  not  pro 
vided  for  by  the  wealth  of  his  parents  with  a  thorough  and 
learned  education,  to  be  brought  up  to  some  trade  or  other  use 
ful  occupation  ? 

A  negro  had  been  left,  by  one  James  Smith,  at  Portsmouth, 
and  been  retained  in  bondage.  In  the  records  of  the  General 
Court,  for  Nov.  4,  1646,  we  read,  — 

"  The  General  Court,  conceiving  themselves  bound  by  the  first  oppor 
tunity  to  bear  witness  against  the  heinous  and  crying  sin  of  man-stealing, 
as  also  to  prescribe  such  timely  redress  for  what  is  past,  and  such  a  law 
for  the  future  as  may  sufficiently  deter  all  others  belonging  to  us  to  have 
to  do  in  such  vile  and  most  odious  courses,  justly  abhorred  of  all  good 
and  just  men,  do  order,  that  the  negro  interpreter,  with  others  unlawfully 
taken,  be,  by  the  first  opportunity  (at  the  charge  of  the  country,  for  the 
present),  sent  to  his  native  country  of  Guinea,  and  a  letter  with  him  of 
the  indignation  of  the  Court  thereabouts ;  and,  in  justice  hereof,  desiring 
our  honored  Governor  would  please  to  put  this  order  in  execution." l 

Such  was  the  sublime  consistency  of  these  men.  Was  there 
any  earlier  or  more  decided  utterance  against  slavery  and  the 
slave-trade  than  this  ? 

If  this  is  not  a  serious  challenge,  what  is  ?  It  should  be 
remembered  that,  at  the  time  when  this  indignant  protest  was 
i  Mass.  Kecords,  vol.  ii.  p.  168. 


478  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

made,  every  other  government  on  earth  was,  apparently,  altogether 
indifferent  to  the  existence  and  evil  of  slavery.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  this  lofty  Christian  tone  of  feeling  did  not  last 
always.  With  the  decay  of  education,  this  spirit  of  universal 
liberty  decayed.  Mingling  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  people 
of  Massachusetts  gradually  lowered  their  standard,  and  felt  and 
acted  like  the  rest.  Some  of  them  held  slaves.  The  oldest 
members  of  some  of  our  oldest  families  must  still  remember 
them.  Of  cruelty  towards  them,  I  know  not  that  there  is  even 
a  tradition.1 

The  spirit  of  the  laws  I  have  read  is  purely  republican.  They 
protect  the  children  and  apprentices  in  their  right  to  be  in 
structed,  against  the  indifference  or  cupidity  of  masters  and 
parents,  but  leave  it  to  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  each 
town  to  provide  the  means  in  their  own  way.  Further,  —  what 
was  quite  as  essential  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  design  of 
the  law,  they  provide  a  standard  below  which  the  qualifications 
of  a  teacher  in  the  grammar  schools  shall  not  fall.  He  shall 
"  be  able  to  instruct  youth  so  far  as  they  shall  be  fitted 
for  the  university,"  thus  bringing  within  the  reach  of  all  the 
children  of  every  town  of  one  hundred  families  the  means  of 
preparing  themselves  for  the  highest  course  of  instruction  then 
or  now  existing  in  the  country.  Had  this  law  continued  in 
operation,  youth  from  nearly  every  town  in  the  Commonwealth 
would  now  be  enjoying  this  privilege.2 

The  whole  policy  of  the  Puritan  colonists  in  this  matter 
ought  to  fill  us  with  admiration.  In  their  simplicity  they  con 
ceived,  and  in  their  poverty  executed,  a  scheme  which  had 
proved  too  high  for  the  intellect  and  too  vast  for  the  power  of 
every  previous  potentate  or  people,  —  the  hitherto  unimagined 
idea  of  universal  education.  Fugitives  from  the  persecution  of 
the  Old  World,  and  hemmed  in  between  the  waves  of  a  stormy 

1  Those  amongst  us  who  have  openly  or  silently  sympathized  with  the  spirit  of 
this  law,  have  for  many  years  been  accustomed  to  hear  reproaches  heaped  upon  us, 
because  we  allowed  such  disturbers  of  the  peace  as  Garrison,  Phillips,  and  May  to 
go  unhanged.     The  reproach  now  is,  that  such  men  did  not  arise  two  centuries  ago, 
that  this  law  was  ever  allowed  to  fall  into  oblivion,  that  such  men  as  Garrison  did 
not  live  amongst  us  always. 

2  Much  of  this,  and  several  subsequent  paragraphs,  is  taken  from  an  article  in  the 
"  North  American  Review,"  published  many  years  since. 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  479 

sea  and  the  savages  of  a  boundless  wilderness,  so  little  were 
they  subdued  by  the  hardness  of  their  lot,  that  they  regarded 
ignorance,  irreligion,  and  sin  as  the  only  evils,  and  religious 
instruction,  intellectual  discipline,  and  proper  employment,  as 
the  effectual  remedies.  Where  shall  their  descendants  look  for 
a  higher  example  ? 

How  it  came  to  pass  that  the  early  colonists  of  New  England 
should  form  laws,  for  the  advancement  of  education  and  the 
rights  of  men,  of  such  wisdom,  liberality,  and  forecast,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  conjecture.  The  civil,  and  especially  the  spiritual, 
leaders  of  the  first  emigrations  to  Massachusetts  were  the  most 
highly  educated  men  that  ever  led  colonies.  They  were  inde 
pendent,  liberty-loving  Anglo-Saxons.  Their  leader  and  many 
of  his  associates  were  brought  up  "  among  books  and  learned 
men."  l  They  possessed,  and  they  long  continued  to  exert,  an 
influence  of  the  highest  and  noblest,  because  of  the  most  dis 
interested,  kind.  They  intended  to  form  a  Christian  Common 
wealth,  all  the  members  of  which  should  understand  and  obey  the 
laws  of  God  and  of  the  State.  We  may  differ  from  some  of  their 
theological  opinions;  we  may  regret  that,  within  half  a  century 
after  the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  the  spirit  of  persecution, 
which  had  such  frightful  power  in  Britain  and  in  most  countries 
on  the  continent  of  Europe,  reached  and  affected  even  them. 
We  may  regret,  while  we  do  not  wonder,  that  they  should  have 
been  misled  by  a  belief  that  institutions  and  laws  made  for  the 
Jews  alone,  in  one  stage  of  their  progress,  were  intended  for  all 
mankind  in  every  stage.  But  we  may  search  the  world  in  vain 
for  more  conspicuous,  unselfish  devotion  to  the  cause  of  what 
they  believed  to  be  truth  and  the  rights  of  humanity.  Of  the 
ministers  of  the  fifteen  or^  sixteen  towns  in  Massachusetts,2  the 
greater  part  had  been  educated  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  And 
they  were  not  educated  men  of  an  ordinary  type.  Archbishop 

1  Kobert  Ryce,  writing  to  John  Winthrop,  on  the  12th  of  August,  1629,  says, 
"  How  hard  will  it  be,  for  one  brought  up  among  books  and  learned  men,  to  live  in 
a  barbarous  place,  where  is  no  learning,  and  less  civility."  —  See  Historical  Collec 
tions,  4th  Series,  vol.  vi.  p.  393. 

2  Palfrey's  N.  E.,  pp.  371-2.     Newberry,  Ipswich,  Saugus,  Salem,  Charlestown, 
Weymouth,  Newtown,  Watertown,  Boston,  Roxbury,  Dorchester,  Hingham,  Medford, 
Concord,   Dedham ;    and   Wessagussett,  now   Savin   Hill   and   South   Boston,  or 
Mount  Wollaston,  now  Quincy.     Winnesimit,  now  Chelsea,  belonged  to  Boston. 


480  EDUCATION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Laud  did  not  meddle  with  ordinary,  dull  preachers.  He 
silenced  the  famous  preachers,  —  those  that  were  distinguished 
for  their  learning  and  eloquence,  their  character  and  influence. 
Many  of  the  men  thus  silenced  came  to  Massachusetts.  And 
they  came  not  alone  :  their  parishioners  and  friends,  who 
loved  them  best,  and  most  highly  valued  liberty  of  conscience, 
and  least  feared  the  terrors  of  the  ocean  and  hardships  of  a 
savage  wilderness,  came  with  them. 

Under  date  of  Sept.  4,  1632,  Governor  Winthrop  writes  :  — 

"  The  '  Griffin,'  a  ship  of  three  hundred  tons,  arrived.  .  .  .  She  brought 
about  two  hundred  passengers.  ...  In  this  ship  came  Mr.  Cotton,  Mr. 
Hooker,  and  Mr.  Stone,  ministers  ;  and  Mr.  Peirce,  Mr.  Haynes  (a 
gentleman  of  great  estate),  Mr.  Hoffe,  and  many  other  men  of  good 
estates.  They  got  out  of  England  with  much  difficulty,  all  places  being 
belaid  to  have  taken  Mr.  Cotton  and  Mr.  Hooker." 

Dr.  Palfrey  says  of  these  men,  and  he  knew  of  whom  he  was 
speaking,  — 

"  In  one  ship  came  John  Haynes,  an  opulent  landholder  of  the  county 
of  Essex,  and  three  famous  divines,  —  Thomas  Hooker,  Samuel  Stone, 
and  John  Cotton.  They  were  men  of  eminent  capacity  and  sterling 
character,  fit  to  be  concerned  in  the  founding  of  a  State.  In  all  its 
generations  of  worth  and  refinement,  Boston  has  never  seen  an  assembly 
more  illustrious  for  generous  qualities  and  for  manly  culture,  than  when 
the  magistrates  of  the  young  colony  welcomed  Cotton  and  his  fellow- 
voyagers  at  Winthrop's  table."  * 

Many  of  these  men  brought  their  libraries  with  them.  Of 
one,  John  Harvard's,  of  two  hundred  and  sixty  volumes,  we 
have  the  catalogue.  There  is  not  probably  now  a  private 
library  in  America,  of  the  same  number  of  volumes,  so  well 
selected  and  so  valuable.  Many  of  the  authors,  such  as  Beza, 
Chrysostom,  Calvin,  Luther,  Bacon,  and  Camden,  and  all  the 
classical  authors,  —  Homer,  Plutarch,  and  Isocrates,  Lucan, 
Pliny,  Sallust,  Terence,  Juvenal,  and  Horace,  —  are  hardly  less 
valuable  now  than  they  were  then. 

Among  them  were  the  writings  of  Luther,  who  was  not  only 
the  great  leader  of  the  Reformation,  and  the  translator  of  the 
whole  Bible  into  exquisite  classical  German,  —  which  holds  the 

1  Palfrey's  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  367. 


LEGISLATION   AND   HISTORY.  481 

same  place  for  its  beautiful  language  amongst  the  Germans 
as  King  James's  translation  among  the  English,  —  but  the  most 
able,  eloquent,  and  strenuous  advocate  of  the  highest  education 
in  the  classical  languages,  in  Hebrew,  in  History,  Philosophy, 
Botany,  Logic,  Rhetoric,  Music,  and  the  Mathematics,  for  those 
who  could  afford  such  an  education,  and  of  schools  for  universal, 
elementary  education,  which  all  boys  should  be  compelled  to 
attend.1  And  in  these  writings  they  must,  have  read  such  sen 
tences  as  these : — 

"  It  is  brutish  recklessness  to  act  merely  for  the  present  time,  and  to 
say,  as  for  us,  we  will  rule  now  ;  but  we  care  not  how  it  shall  be  with 
those  who  come  after  us."  2 

"  For  the  Prince  of  Darkness  is  shrewd  enough  to  know,  that,  where 
the  languages  flourish,  there  his  power  will  soon  be  so  rent  and  torn  that 
he  cannot  readily  repair  it." 

"  Let  us  bethink  ourselves,  that  haply  we  may  not  be  able  to  retain  the 
gospel  without  the  knowledge  of  the  languages  in  which  it  was  written. 
For  they  are  the  scabbard  in  which  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  is  sheathed ; 
they  are  the  casket  in  which  this  jewel  is  enshrined." 

"  Hence  we  may  conclude  that,  where  the  languages  do  not  abide, 
there,  in  the  end,  the  gospel  must  perish." 

"  The  Sophists  averred,  that  the  Scriptures  were  obscure.  .  .  .  But 
they  did  not  see  that  all  that  was  wanted,  was  a  knowledge  of  the  lan 
guages  in  which  it  was  recorded  ;  for  nothing  is  more  plain-spoken  than 
God's  word,  when  we  have  become  thorough  masters  of  its  language." 3 

"  Had  I  passed  my  days  in  obscurity,  and  had  I  received  no  aid  from 
the  languages  towards  a  sure  and  exact  understanding  of  the  Scriptures, 
I  might  have  led  a  holy  life,  and,  in  my  retirement,  have  preached  sound 
doctrine ;  but  then  I  should  have  left  the  Pope  and  the  Sophists,  together 
with  the  whole  body  of  Antichrist,  just  where  I  found  them."  4 

1  See  Dr.  Martin  Luther's  Address  to  the  Councilmen  of  all  the  towns  of  Ger 
many,  passim.  Barnard's  American  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  iy.  p.  421. 

'2  American  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  iv.  pp.  432,  433. 

8  Id.,  pp.  434,  435. 

4  See  how  Luther  valued  the  work  of  teaching :  "As  for  myself,  if  I  had  children, 
and  were  able,  I  would  teach  them  not  only  the  languages  and  history, but  singing  like 
wise  ;  and  with  music  I  would  combine  a  full  course  of  mathematics."  —  Id.,  p.  437. 

"  Cheerfully  let  thy  son  study ;  and  should  he,  the  while,  even  be  compelled  to 
earn  his  bread,  yet  remember  that  you  are  otfering  to  our  Lord  God  a  fair  block  of 
marble,  out  of  which  he  can  hew  for  you  a  perfect  work."  —  Sermon  on  Keeping 
Children  at  School,  p.  440. 

"For  my  part,  if  I  were,  or  were  compelled,  to  leave  off  preaching,  and  to  enter 

31 


482  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

We  must  remember  that  all  this  was  written  and  published 
throughout  Germany  in  1524. 

There  is  another  thing  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  to 
account  for  the  wisdom  of  this  legislation.  None  were  chosen 
to  the  Legislature  but  religious  men,  —  men  of  spotless  char 
acter,  the  best,  wisest,  and  most  trustworthy  to  be  found,— 
men  who  would  naturally  make  the  best  laws  they  could. 
From  which  of  these  United  States  are  the  best,  wisest,  and 
most  trustworthy  men  now  sent,  and  those  only  ?  To  which 
Congress,  within  the  memory  of  any  person  living,  have  only 
men  of  spotless  character,  the  best,  wisest,  and  most  trustworthy 
to  be  found,  been  sent,  from  Massachusetts  ?  To  which  branch 
of  which  legislature  of  the  State,  to  which  common  council  of 
the  city,  since  the  first,  have  such  men  and  such  men  only  been 
sent?  The  very  thing  which  should  always  be  considered  a 
disqualification  for  a  place  in  either  of  these  assemblies  is  often 
the  only  qualification  a  candidate  possesses,  —  the  having  some 
private  interest  to  advance  therein. 

This  law  of  1647  was  the  establishment  and  the  beginning 
of  that  great  and  wise  system  of  common  schools  for  the  educa 
tion  of  the  whole  people,  which  has  been  and  is  the  honor  of  this 
Commonwealth,  and  which  has  been  spreading,  and  is  destined 
to  spread,  until  it  controls  and  guides  the  education  of  the  whole 
people,  not  only  in  every  State  in  this  country,  but  of  all  States 
in  every  country. 

From  the  beginning,  the  practice  seems  to  have  prevailed  of 
transacting  the  business  of  the  several  towns  at  meetings  of  all 
the  freemen.  Every  freeman  was  here  naturally  led  to  infqrm 
himself  as  to  all  the  interests  of  the  community,  and  was 
free  to  utter  and  urge  his  opinions.  These  town-meetings 
thus  became  societies  for  the  discussion  of  real  questions 
of  public  interest;  schools,  therefore,  of  training  in  argument, 
logic,  and  eloquence.  These  have  continued,  in  all  the  towns, 
up  to  the  present  day,  and  must  have  had  vast  influence 

some  other  vocation,  I  know  not  an  office  that  would  please  me  better  than  that  of 
schoolmaster  or  teacher  of  boys.  For  I  am  convinced,  that,  next  to  preaching,  this 
is  the  most  useful  and  greatly  the  best  labor  in  all  the  world ;  and,  in  fact,  I  am 
sometimes  in  doubt  which  of  the  positions  is  the  more  honorable."  —  Id.,  p.  441. 


LEGISLATION   AND    HISTORY.  483 

in  forming  men  to  habits  of  thought  and  enlightened  dis 
cussion.1 

In  1632,  the  inhabitants  of  Dorchester  designated  twelve  of 
their  number  to  meet  weekly  for  the  consideration  of  public 
affairs.  About  the  same  time,  Watertown  chose  three  for  the 
same  purpose.  In  1634,  the  people  of  Boston  chose  "  three  to 
make  up  the  ten  to  manage  the  affairs  of  the  town."  2  In  1635, 
Mr.  Frothingham  tells  us  of  an  "  order  made  by  the  inhabitants 
of  Charlestown,  at  a  full  meeting,  for  the  government  of  the 
town  by  selectmen."  3  This  is  the  element  of  representation ; 
and  "  at  the  fifth  General  Court  held  in  Massachusetts,  twenty- 
four  persons  appeared,  delegated  by  eight  towns ;  '  namely, 
three  each  from  Newtown,  Watertown,  Charlestown,  Boston, 
Roxbury,  Dorchester,  Saugus,  and  Salem,'  —  to  meet  and  con 
sider  of  such  matters  as  they  (the  freemen)  were  to  take  order  in 
at  the  same  General  Court;"4  and  thus  the  government  of 
Massachusetts  first  became  truly  a  representative  government. 

The  leaders  and  first  legislators  of  Massachusetts  were  uncon 
sciously  laying  the  foundations  and  shaping  the  laws  for  a 
government  and  state  of  society  wholly  new.  Every  act  of  their 
legislation  is  therefore  of  the  highest  interest  to  the  student  of 
human  progress.  But  as  I  found  it  impossible,  in  the  space  allowed 
me,  to  give  more  than  a  few  glimpses  of  the  spirit  and  action  of 
their  Legislature,  I  have  selected  the  law  founding  the  university, 
for  the  highest  education  ;  that  establishing  common  schools,  for 
universal  education,  and  opening  for  all  the  path  to  the  highest; 
that  which  required  every  individual  to  be  fitted  for  some 
employment  useful  to  the  Commonwealth;  and  that  which 
denounced  and  forbade  slavery. 

1  Municipal  government  —  the  city  —  is  an  anomaly  in  a  commonwealth.     In  all 
ages  it  has  been  the  natural  expression  of  despotism.     Not  the  people  of  Italy,  but 
the  city  of  Rome,  governed  the  world,  as  Paris  has  governed  France.     In  a  city  the 
people  annually  meet,  not  together,  but  in  wards,  and  surrender  their  liberties  to 
men  not  always  fit  to  govern  justly ;   often  to  ambitious  demagogues  who  have  been 
devoting  their  time  to  intriguing  for  their  own  advancement.      Faneuil  Hall  was  the 
creation  of  a  free  town.     It  is  almost  out  of  place  in  a  city.     The  natural  tendency 
of  things,  in  a  city,  is  shown  by  the  present  condition  of  New  York,  governed  by 
persons  peeking,  not  the  best  interests  of  the  people,  but  their  own  interest,  —  to 
make  themselves  rich. 

2  Palfrey's  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  381.  3  History  of  Charlestown,  p.  50. 
4  Palfrey's  Hist.,  vol.  i.  p.  372, 


484  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

The  schoolmaster  was  an  important  person,  in  those  early 
days.  Many  of  them  were  distinguished.  There  is  room  to 
speak  of  only  a  few.  Dr.  Bentley  gives  us  a  pretty  full  account 
of  those  of  Salem  for  the  first  century  and  beyond.  John  Fiske 
arrived  in  1637.  He  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  in  England, 
and  was  possessed  of  a  large  property.  He  prepared  for  college 
Sir  George  Downing,  a  graduate  of  1642.  Mr.  Fiske  was  fre 
quently  in  the  pulpit  in  Salem,  and  in  1644  became  pastor  of 
Wenham.  Edward  Norris  succeeded  Fiske,  whose  pupil  he 
had  been,  in  1640,  and  continued  forty-two  years.  He  was 
succeeded  by  Daniel  Epes,  a  Cambridge  graduate,  who  con 
tinued  till  1698.  He  was  a  magistrate  and  a  counsellor.  He 
was  succeeded  by  Samuel  Whitman,  who  was  afterwards  settled 
in  the  ministry ;  and  he  by  John  Emerson,  who  had  been  in  the 
ministry,  and  continued  in  the  school  till  1711.1 

To  secure  proper  respect  to  the  schoolmaster,  his  wife  was 
to  be  accommodated  with  a  pew  next  the  wives  of  the  magis 
trates.2 

When,  in  1643,  forty-eight  of  the  inhabitants  of  Weymouth 
determined  to  plant  a  colony  in  Seaconk,  which  they  named 
Rehoboth,  the  fifth  on  the  list  was  the  schoolmaster.  In  the 
partition,  by  lot,  of  the  woodland ;  and  again,  on  the  registry  of 
lands,  his  name  had  the  fifth  place.  Yet  Rehoboth  was  then,  as 
it  is  now,  one  of  the  small  towns.  It  thus  had  one  person,  pro 
fessionally  a  teacher,  throughout  the  year.  It  now  has  schools 
three  months  in  summer  and  three  months  in  winter,  each  of 
them  usually  taught  by  a  new  teacher  every  quarter. 

Ezekiel  Cheever,  born  in  1614,  came  to  New  England  in  1637; 
and,  the  next  year,  went  with  those  who  founded  New  Haven, 
began  his  services  as  schoolmaster  in  1638,  and  continued  there 
with  great  success  till  1650;  when  he  moved  to  Ipswich,  and 
there  taught  with  distinguished  success  and  celebrity,  making 
that  town  rank,  according  to  Dr.  Bentley,  in  literature  and  popu 
lation,  above  the  other  towns  in  the  county  of  Essex.3  In  1661, 
Mr.  Felt  tells  us,  his  agricultural  operations  required  a  barn,  and 
that  he  planted  an  orchard  on  his  homestead,  thereby  improving 
the  soil  of  Ipswich,  as  well  as  the  souls  of  her  children,  by 

l  Mass.  Historical  Collections,  vol.  vi.  p.  240.  2  Id.,  p.  241. 

3  Barnard,  American  Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  304. 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  485 

healthy  manual  labor.  It  is  to  be  regretted,  as  Mr.  Barnard  says, 
that  the  early  practice  of  attaching  a  house,  for  the  occupancy  of 
the  master,  with  a  few  acres  of  land  for  a  garden,  orchard,  and 
the  feeding  of  a  cow,  adopted  from  the  Old  World,1  had  not  been 
continued  in  all  the  small  towns.  It  would  have  been  the 
means  of  securing,  in  each  town,  a  permanent  schoolmaster, 
educated  for  the  office.  If  this  practice  had  been  retained,  the 
lamentable  decay  of  the  schools  throughout  nearly  all  the  smaller 
towns  might  have  been  prevented. 

In  November,  1666,  Mr.  Cheever  removed  to  Charlestown ;  and 
thence,  in  1670,  to  Boston,  where  his  labors  were  continued  for 
thirty-eight  years.  He  was  a  good  scholar,  and  made  an  excel 
lent  Accidence  for  beginners  in  Latin,  which  continued  in  use 
for  very  many  years ;  but,  if  the  account  that  Barnard  gives  of 
his  discipline  is  to  be  relied  on,  he  was  in  his  feelings  more  of  a 
savage  than  a  Christian.2 

There  were  other  famous  and  able  public  schoolmasters ;  but 
there  were  not  enough  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  people,  and 
thence  the  necessity  of  what  were  afterwards  called  "  academies." 
Of  one  or  two  of  these  only  have  I  time  to  speak. 

By  the  will  of  Governor  William  Dummer,  who  died  in  1761, 
his  dwelling-house  and  farm  at  Byfield,  in  Newbury,  were  set 
apart  for  the  establishment  of  a  grammar  school,  to  stand  for 
ever  on  the  farm.  The  property  was  given  in  trust,  the  rents 
and  profits  to  be  employed  in  erecting  a  school-house,  and  in 
support  of  a  master;  the  appointment  of  whom  was  intrusted  to 
a  committee  of  five  Byfield  freeholders,  acting  in  conjunction 
with  the  minister  of  the  parish.  The  little  school-house  was  built 
in  1762,  and  Samuel  Moody  —  the  famous  Master  Moody  — 
was  chosen  to  take  charge  of  it.  He  continued  its  master  for 
seventeen  years,  with  an  energy,  success,  and  reputation  which 
have  rarely  been  surpassed.  Very  many  of  those  destined  to  be 
the  most  distinguished  men  of  Massachusetts  in  the  various 
walks  of  life,  were  his  pupils.  They  learned  little  else  but  Latin ; 
yet  the  habits  of  promptness,  independence  of  thought,  exactness 
and  thoroughness,  which  he  formed  in  them,  made  all  future  ac- 

1  Barnard,  American  Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  303. 

2  See  Life  of  Rev.  John  Barnard,  as  quoted  by  H.  Barnard,  American  Journal, 
vol.  i.  p.  308. 


486  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

quisitions  easy,  and  success,  in  most  cases,  certain.  The  endow 
ment  was  not  quite  sufficient  to  maintain  the  master,  and  fees 
for  tuition  were  found  necessary.  This,  for  some  years,  was 
the  only  conspicuous  school  in  Massachusetts;  candidates  for 
the  college  being  very  generally  prepared  by  the  parish  minis 
ters.1 

The  example  of  Governor  Dummer  was  followed  by  the 
Phillipses  of  Andover  and  Exeter,  in  the  foundation  and  en 
dowment,  in  those  towns,  of  excellent  academies,  which  soon 
reached  the  high  reputation  they  have  enjoyed  up  to  the  present 
day. 

Samuel  Phillips,  of  Andover,  a  pupil  of  Master  Moody,  a 
graduate  of  Harvard  in  1771,  an  earnest  patriot,  a  successful 
man  of  business,  made  town  clerk  and  treasurer  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  member  of  the  Provincial  Congress  for  four  years, 
from  1775 ;  a  senator  from  the  first  election  under  the  Consti 
tution,  and  onwards,  except  one  year,  when  he  was  lieutenant- 
governor,  till  his  death ;  president  of  the  Senate ;  and,  before  he 
was  thirty,  a  judge  of  the  Common  Pleas,  —  this  honored  and 
honorable  Judge  Phillips  founded  Phillips  Academy  in  Andover, 
in  1777,  which,  the  next  year,  went  into  operation  under  Eliphalet 
Pearson. 

His  own  share  in  the  endowment  was  not  large,  but  his  in 
fluence  secured  $6,000  each  from  his  father,  Samuel,  of  North 
Andover,  and  his  uncle  William,  of  Boston;  $31,000  from  his 
uncle  John,  of  Exeter,  and  $28,000  from  his  cousin  William,  of 
Boston. 

This  was  the  first  incorporated  academy;  the  act  bearing  the 
date  of  Oct.  4,  1780.  One  day  less  than  six  months  from  that 
day,  that  uncle  John  announced  to  his  nephew  the  incorporation 
of  Phillips  Academy  at  Exeter. 

The  common  schools  and  the  town  grammar  schools  continued 
to  decline.  In  the  busy  world  of  Massachusetts,  men  of  ability 
found  more  profitable  employment;  and  the  great  truth  was  not 
yet  discovered,  that  women,  as  teachers  and  managers  and 
governors  of  boys  even  up  to  manhood,  are  often  gifted,  at 
least  as  highly  as  men.  Most  of  the  boys  were  fitted  for  college 
J  See  Nehemiah  Cleveland's  admirable  history  of  this  school.  , 


LEGISLATION   AND   HISTORY.  487 

by  the  ministers  of  the  gospel,  among  whom  I  have  the  best  pos 
sible  means  of  knowing,  that  the  practice  of  teaching  the  elements 
of  the  Latin  language,  as  a  spoken  language,  very  generally  pre 
vailed  as  late  as  one  hundred  years  ago. 

Academies  and  private  schools  grew  more  and  more  numerous; 
sometimes  endowed  by  public-spirited  individuals,  sometimes  by 
grants  of  land  from  the  State,  often  by  both,  and  usually  sup 
ported,  in  part,  by  fees  from  the  students.  In  1834,  there  were 
more  than  nine  hundred  and  fifty  of  these  schools.  Those 
under  the  supervision  of  resolute,  judicious  men,  who  knew  the 
value  of  good  teaching,  and  how  to  secure  it ;  and  sometimes 
others,  by  a  fortunate  accident,  or  a  gracious  Providence,  —  had 
good  teachers,  and  flourished.  But  the  greater  number  were 
very  poor  schools ;  so  also  were  most  of  the  town  schools ;  and 
the  belief  and  intimate  conviction  that  most  of  the  common 
schools  were  wretchedly  poor,  became,  except  amongst  the  most 
ignorant  of  the  teachers  themselves,  and  the  most  benighted  of 
the  people,  almost  universal. 

The  Act  of  1789,  up  to  which  time  the  laws  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking  continued  in  operation,  was  a  wide  departure 
from  the  principle  of  the  original  law.  It  substitutes  six  months 
for  the  constant  instruction  provided  for  towns  of  fifty  families ; 
and  requires  a  grammar  teacher  of  determinate  qualifications  for 
towns  of  two  hundred  families,  instead  of  the  similar  requisition 
from  all  towns  of  half  that  number  of  inhabitants.  Still,  how 
ever,  far  as  it  falls  short  of  that  noble  democratic  idea  of  the 
Puritans,  of  providing  the  best  possible  instruction  for  all,  it 
would,  if  in  force  at  the  present  day,  render  instruction  of  the 
highest  kind  accessible  to  the  children  of  more  than  two-thirds 
of  the  towns  of  the  Commonwealth. 

By  an  Act  of  February,  1824,  facetiously  called,  in  the  index 
to  the  Massachusetts  Laws,  "  an  act  providing  for  the  public 
schools,"  the  law  of  1789  was  repealed  ;  and,  for  all  towns  of  less 
than  five  thousand  inhabitants,  instead  of  a  master  of  "  good 
morals,  well  instructed  in  the  Latin,  Greek,  and  English  lan 
guages,"  a  teacher,  or  teachers,  must  be  provided,  "  well  qualified 
to  instruct  youth  in  orthography,  reading,  writing,  arithmetic, 
English  grammar,  and  geography,  and  in  good  behavior." 

This  act  was  the   severest   blow  the  'common-school  system 


488  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

ever  received ;  not  only  because  it  shut  from  the  poor  children, 
of  all  but  a  few  towns,  the  path  which  had  always  lain  open  to 
the  highest  order  of  education,  but  because  it  took  away  a  fixed 
standard  for  the  qualifications  of  teachers,  and  substituted  no 
other  in  its  stead.  The  common  schools  had  hitherto  been  as 
nursing  mothers  to  the  gifted  children  of  the  indigent,  who  were 
often  raised,  through  them,  to  better  opportunities,  and  thence 
to  the  highest  stations  in  society.  This  high  duty  they  utterly 
abandoned.  The  poor  boy  of  talent  who,  under  the  former  sys 
tem,  would  have  received  the  elements  of  the  best  education, 
gratuitously,  but  of  right,  in  his  native  town,  was  thenceforward 
obliged  to  find  or  beg  his  way  to  a  private  school  or  academy, 
or  to  remain,  for  ever,  without  a  learned  education.  The  candi 
date  for  the  office  of  teacher,  being  released  from  the  necessity 
of  an  acquaintance  with  the  learned  languages,  which  in  most 
cases  implied  a  certain  degree  of  cultivation  and  refinement,  and 
amenable  to  no  rule  measuring  the  amount  of  the  mere  elements, 
which  only  were  required,  was  too  often  found  to  be  lamentably 
deficient  even  in  them. 

The  effects  of  lowering  the  standard  of  instruction  in  the 
public  schools  became,  to  attentive  observers,  every  year  more 
apparent.  For  a  time,  the  better  qualified  teachers  continued  in 
the  service ;  but  they  were  gradually  supplanted,  in  many  places, 
by  persons  who,  from  their  inferior  qualifications,  were  willing 
to  do  the  work  for  a  lower  compensation. 

In  1830,  a  meeting  of  teachers  took  place  in  Boston,  which 
led  to  the  formation  of  the  American  Institute  of  Instruction, 
intended  for  the  mutual  benefit  of  actual  teachers.  It  had  its 
first  annual  meeting  this  year,  and  began  its  work  with  an  Intro 
ductory  Address  by  President  Wayland,  of  Brown  University,  its 
first  President.  It  was  incorporated  in  1831,  and  has  continued  till 
the  present  time,  to  hold  annual  meetings  in  various  parts  of  this 
and  other  States,  with  addresses,  lectures,  and  discussions,  which 
have  brought  together  many  actual  teachers  and  other  friends  of 
education  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Its  good  effects  upon 
the  teachers  have  been  strikingly  shown  in  the  improved  charac 
ter  and  practical  nature  of  their  lectures  and  discussions. 

One  of  the  subjects  year  after  year  discussed  was  the  condi 
tion  of  the  common  schools  and  what  ought  to  be  and  might 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  489 

be  done  for  their  elevation.  These  discussions  led,  in  1836,  to  a 
Memorial  to  the  General  Court,  from  a  committee  of  the  Direc 
tors  of  the  Institute,  urging  the  importance  of  legislative  action 
for  the  improvement  of  the  common  schools,  particularly  by 
raising  the  qualifications  of  the  teachers,  and  asking  for  the 
appointment  of  a  Superintendent  of  the  common  schools,  and 
showing  the  ways  in  which  he  might  exercise  the,  most  beneficial 
influence.  This  was  referred  to  a  committee,  but  led  to  no  im 
mediate  action.  In  January,  1837,  another  memorial  from  the 
Institute  was  presented  to  the  Legislature,  praying  that  better 
provision  might  be  made  for  the  training  of  the  teachers  of  the 
schools,  and  particularly  "the  instituting,  for  the  special  instruc 
tion  of  teachers,  of  one  or  more  seminaries." 

The  cause  of  the  common  schools  had  been  very  ably  pleaded 
by  J.  G.  Carter,1  at  that  time  a  member  of  the  House,  and  ear 
nestly  and  long  and  well  advocated  by  our  associate,  Rev.  Charles 
Brooks,  of  Hingham,  in  lectures  in  many  places,  two  of  them 
before  the  Legislature  daring  this  same  session.  This  gentleman, 
indeed,  for  his  long,  disinterested,  and  unpaid  labors  in  the  cause 
of  education,  especially  for  his  efforts  to  secure  the  establishment 
of  Normal  schools  and  a  Board  of  Education,  is  entitled  to  be 
considered,  more  than  any  other  individual,  what  he  has  been 
called,  the  Father  of  Normal  schools.2 

Elisha  Ticknor,  father  of  our  distinguished  friend  and  asso 
ciate,  George  Ticknor,  was  the  first  in  Massachusetts,  —  so  far 
as  I  know,  —  to  suggest  the  importance  of  an  institution  for  the 
education  of  teachers,  which  he  did  in  1787,  in  the  "  Massachu 
setts  Magazine."  The  next  was  Denison  Olmsted,  in  1817. 
In  1823,  William  Russell  proposed  seminaries  for  teachers ;  in 
1825,  Thomas  A.  Gallaudet  did  the  same  in  Connecticut;  and 
in  1826,  Governor  DeWitt  Clinton  in  New  York,  Governor 

1  In  Letters  to  the  Hon.  "William  Prescott,  LL.D.,  on  the  Schools  of  New  Eng 
land,  with  remarks  upon  the  Principles  of  Instruction,  p.  123.  Boston,  1824.  And 
Essays  upon  Popular  Education,  containing  an  Outline  of  an  Institution  for  the 
Education  of  Teachers,  of  sixty  pages.  Boston,  182G. 

'2  Mr.  Brooks  lectured  in  nearly  one  hundred  different  towns  and  cities, — in 
every  place  where  he  was  invited.  By  invitation  of  the  Legislatures  of  Massa 
chusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  and 
Pennsylvania,  he  delivered,  to  crowded  assemblies  in  each,  two  or  three  lectures, 
besides  speaking  in  most  of  the  capitals  between  Boston  and  Washington. 


490  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

Levi  Lincoln,  in  his  speech  to  the  Legislature,  June  6, 1827,  ear 
nestly  recommends  "  measures  for  the  preparation  and  better 
qualification  of  teachers,"  laments  their  present  "  incompetency," 
and  suggests  a  public  "  institution  for  their  appropriate  educa 
tion  and  discipline."  In  1827,  James  G.  Carter  asked  aid  of  the 
Legislature  to  establish  a  seminary,  in  vain. 

In  1830,  a  branch  of  Phillips  Academy  in  Andover  was  opened 
for  the  express  purpose  of  educating  teachers,  but  was  soon 
closed. 

On  the  14th  of  January,  1837,  in  the  Massachusetts  House  of 
Representatives,  on  motion  of  Mr.  King,  of  Danvers,  it  was 
ordered  that  the  Committee  on  Education  be  requested  to  con 
sider  the  expediency  of  providing  by  law  for  the  better  educa 
tion  of  teachers  of  the  public  schools.  On  April  14,  of  the 
same  year,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Carter,  of  Lancaster,  a  bill  relating 
to  common  schools  was  taken  up,  and  the  House  resolved  itself 
into  a  committee  of  the  whole  for  the  consideration  thereof;  and, 
after  some  time  spent  therein,  Mr.  Speaker  resumed  the  chair, 
and  Mr.  Winthrop,  of  Boston,  from  the  committee,  reported 
that  the  committee  had  had  the  subject  referred  to  them  under 
consideration,  and  that  the  said  bill,  with  sundry  amendments 
recommended  by  the  committee,  ought  to  pass ;  and  the  bill  was 
ordered  to  a  third  reading. 

Mr.  Carter's  report  was  as  follows :  — 

"  The  Committee  on  Education  to  whom  was  referred  so  much  of  His 
Excellency  the  Governor's  Address  as  relates  to  education,  and  to  whom 
was  also  referred  '  The  Memorial  of  the  Directors  of  the  American  Insti 
tute  of  Instruction,'  and  the  petition  of  a  convention  of  delegates  from 
each  of  the  towns  in  Plymouth  County,  and  who  were  directed  by  order 
of  the  House,  Jan.  14,  1837,  to  consider  the  expediency  of  providing  by 
law  for  the  better  education  of  teachers  of  the  public  schools  of  the  Com 
monwealth,  have  carefully  considered  those  subjects,  and  report  thereon 
the  accompanying  bill :  Be  it  enacted,  &c. :  — 

"  Sec.  1.  His  Excellency  the  Governor,  with  the  advice  and  consent 
of  the  Council,  is  hereby  authorized  to  appoint  eight  persons,  who,  together 
with  the  Governor  and  Lieutenant-Governor,  shall  constitute  and  be  de 
nominated  the  Board  of  Education." l 

1  The  first  members  of  the  Board  were  Edward  Everett,  George  Hall,  J.  G. 
Carter,  Emerson  Davis,  Edmund  Dwight,  Horace  Mann,  Edward  A.  Newton, 
Robert  Kantoul,  Jr.,  Thomas  Bobbins,  Jared  Sparks. 


LEGISLATION  AND   HISTORY.  491 

The  remainder  of  the  act  designates  its  duties.  The  common 
schools  were  probably,  at  this  time,  at  their  lowest  point  of  degra 
dation.  From  what  we  can  learn,  they  had,  in  most  parts  of  the 
Commonwealth,  been  gradually  declining,  until,  by  this  act,  the 
Legislature  showed  its  disposition  to  interpose  and  arrest  their 
downward  progress. 

The  Board  of  Education,  at  its  first  meeting,  held  June  29, 
1837,  appointed  as  their  secretary,  Horace  Mann,1  at  that  time 
President  of  the  Senate  of  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Mann  had  been 
known  to  the  individuals  of  the  Board  as  a  member  of  one  or 
other  branch  of  the  General  Court  for  the  ten  previous  years, 
and  especially  as  the  principal  mover  and  agent  in  the  erection 
of  the  State  Lunatic  Hospital  at  Worcester. 

He  had,  moreover,  been  recently  engaged  in  the  revision  of 
the  laws  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  had  been  charged,  together 
with  another,  with  the  supervision  of  the  Revised  Code ;  and  was 
therefore  as  familiar,  probably,  as  any  other  individual,  with  the 
laws,  institutions,  and  interests  of  the  State.  Immediately  on 
his  appointment,  he  gave  up  a  lucrative  practice  in  his  profession, 
and,  abandoning  all  other  pursuits,  devoted  all  his  energies^  time, 
and  thoughts  to  the  work  he  had  entered  upon. 

The  most  important  and  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Board 
was  the  establishment  of  schools  for  the  special  education  of 
teachers.  Two  Normal  schools  went  into  operation  in  the 
course  of  1839 :  one  at  Lexington,  for  females  ;  the  other  for 
pupils  of  both  sexes,  at  Barre :  the  former,  in  July,  under  the 
superintendence  of  Cyrus  Peirce,  a  man  long  and  favorably 
known  as  a  teacher,  at  Nantucket ;  the  latter,  in  September, 
under  the  charge  of  Samuel  Phillips  Newman,  a  gentleman 
who  had  been  for  many  years  a  professor,  of  high  reputation,  in 
Bowdoin  College.  The  first  of  these  schools  was  soon  moved 
to  West  Newton ;  and  thence,  after  some  years,  to  Framingharn, 
where  it  was  finally  settled,  at  a  point  within  a  few  rods  of  the 
exact  geographical  centre  of  the  State.  The  second  was  removed 

1  The  almost  universal  expectation  of  teachers  and  others  interested  in  the  sub 
ject  was,  that  J.  G.  Carter  would  be  appointed.  He  was  far  better  acquainted  with 
the  condition  of  education  in  Massachusetts,  and  had  done,  by  his  eloquent  writings, 
more  than  any  one  else  in  making  that  known  to  the  people.  Advantage  has  been 
taken  of  his  investigations  and  of  his  statements,  but  almost  always  without  acknowl 
edgment. 


492  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

from  Barre  to  Westfield,  where  it  now  stands.  A  third  Normal 
school,  for  both  sexes,  went  into  operation  at  Bridgewater,  Sept. 
9, 1840,  under  the  charge  of  Colonel  Nicholas  Tillinghast,  a  pro 
fessor  of  high  reputation  at  the  Military  School  at  West  Point;1 
a  fourth,  for  females  only,  June  2,  1853,  at  Salem,  under  the 
care  of  a  man  who  had  received  his  education  as  a  teacher  at 
the  Normal  School  in  Bridgewater. 

In  the  establishment  of  each  school,  the  inhabitants  of  the 
town,  or  their  friends,  provided  a  school-house,  or  made  large 
donations  for  that  object.  The  State  sustains  the  schools,  pay 
ing  the  salaries  of  the  teachers  and  the  necessary  expenses  of  the 
school,  granting  aid  to  pupils  of  limited  means  residing  at  a 
distance,  and  making  appropriations  for  apparatus  and  other 
helps  in  instruction. 

All  these  schools  are  now  in  successful  operation,  and  are 
accomplishing  vastly  more  than  their  most  sanguine  friends  ever 
dared  to  hope.  They  have  greatly  improved  the  old  methods 
of  teaching  and  introduced  new.  They  have  improved  in  modes 
of  study,  in  thoroughness,  and  particularly  in  the  study  of  sub 
jects  by  topics,  with  personal  inquiry,  thought,  and  research, 
instead  of  servilely  following  the  text-book.  They  have  im 
proved  in  the  surprisingly  ready  use  of  the  blackboard,  upon 
almost  all  subjects,  and  of  real  objects  and  other  sources  of 
illustration  ;  in  method  ;  and  in  the  organization  of  schools  and 
the  theory  of  discipline  after  a  lofty  standard.  They  have  sub 
stituted  real  teaching  for  the  old  way  of  hearing  lessons? 

1  Mr.  Tillinghast  introduced  into  the  Normal  schools  excellent  modes  of  teaching 
arithmetic  and  other  branches  of  science,  which  have  been  greatly  improved  by  his 
pupils,  and  by  them,  directly  and  indirectly,  introduced  into  the  other  schools.     He 
was  extremely  well  qualified  for  his  position  in  all  respects,  except  one,  —  he  was 
ignorant  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages  ;  and  he  felt  and  often  said,  that  a  person 
cannot  teach  language  without  something  of  this  attainment.     He  always  lamented 
his  want  in  this  respect ;  and,  I  believe,  shortened  his  life  by  his  attempt  to  make 
up  for  it,  when  the  labor  necessary  to  carry  on  the  school  was  constantly  as  much  as 
he  could  bear.     His  ignorance  of  Latin  shortened  his  sleep  and  his  life.     He  felt  that 
if  he  could  have  devoted  to  the  study  only  a  year  or  two,  before  he  was  old  enough 
for  science,  he  would  have  far  better  understood  every  thing  which  he  had  to  learn. 

2  In  a  recent  conversation  with  the  faithful  and  able  teacher  of  the  school  at 
Bridgewater,  he  gave  an  account  of  his  way  of  teaching  mineralogy.      A  single 
instance  may  suffice  to  give  an  idea  of  his  method.     For  learning  a  lesson  on  granite, 
each  pupil  was  furnished  (instead  of  a  text-book)  with  a  piece  of  the  rock,  and  the 
names  of  the  three  constituent  minerals,  whose  properties  he  was  to  study. 


LEGISLATION   AND   HISTORY.  493 

And,  in  accomplishing  this,  the  very  object  of  their  institution, 
and  as  a  means  of  accomplishing  this,  they  have  been  and  are 
teaching,  in  an  admirable  manner,  all  those  branches  of  knowl 
edge  which  are  deemed  most  important  for  the  rising  generation 
to  be  acquainted  with.  The  Normal  schools  are  thus  colleges 
of  purest  character  and  noblest  aim,  perfectly  suited  to  prepare 
females  for  their  special  vocation  in  life,  that  of  teaching  children 
from  birth  up, —  a  vocation  which  is  really,  taking  all  things 
into  consideration,  the  highest  vocation  on  earth.1 

No  teacher,  though  he  may  have  given  his  life  to  the  work, 
can  spend  an  hour  at  one  of  these  schools,  without  feeling  how 
much  time  he  might  have  saved,  and  how  much  better  and 
pleasanter  and  more  useful  his  whole  life's  work  would  have 
been,  if  he  could  have  had  two  years  of  such  preparation  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career.2 

By  the  exact  knowledge,  habits  of  jnvestigation  and  thought, 
and  clear  understanding  given  to  the  great  numbers  who  have 
in  them  been  prepared  to  take  charge  of  the  common  schools  of 
the  State,  nearly  all  these  schools  are  now  very  much  better  than 
they  ever  were  before.  Let  any  one  who  has  any  doubt  upon  this 
subject,  visit  any  of  the  schools,  Primary  or  Grammar,  of  this 
city,  or  of  any  town  in  the  neighborhood.3 


1  The  best  education  for  a  teacher  is  really  the  best  education  that  a  woman  can 
receive,  since  it  requires  a  thorough  knowledge  and  understanding  of  whatever  it  is 
most  important  for  everybody  to  know.     If  better  colleges  are  wanted  for  females, 
they  may  best  be  had  by  carrying  out  the  plan  which   the   Board  of  Education 
have  now  under  consideration,  —  that  of  lengthening  the  course  at  the  Normal 
schools. 

2  Many  years  ago,  an  officer,  P.  A.  Silestrom,  was  sent  by  the  Court  of  Sweden 
to  look  at  our  schools.     After  witnessing,  for  two  hours,  the  instruction  given  by 
young  ladies  in  the  Normal  school  then  at  West  Newton,  he  told  me,  "  This  is 
worth  coming  across  the  Atlantic  to  see.     This  is  a  great  discovery.     There  are 
maiden  ladies  in  Norway  who  could  easily  be  prepared  to  teach  all  the  little  scattered 
mountain  schools  in  that  country,  —  schools  in  regard  to  which  the  government  have 
long  been  almost  in  despair." 

3  In  1856,  I  went  into  Prussia  for  the  express  purpose  of  examining  the  gymnasia 
and,  more  particularly,  the  seminaries  for  teachers,  after  the  model  of  which  our  Nor 
mal  schools  had  been  formed,  in  consequence  of  the  knowledge  given  in  the  Report 
on  them  by  Cousin,  which  had  been  introduced  here  by  his  correspondent,  our 
friend  and  associate,  Charles  Brooks.     I  found  no  difficulty  in  gaining  admission  to 
them,  through  our  minister  Governor  Vroom ;  and  devoted  a  week  to  the  examina 
tion  of  one  of  them  in  Berlin,  which  had  been  pointed  out  by  the  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction  and  Religion  as  a  fair  representative  of  the  Normal  schools  of  Prussia, 


494  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

There  is  another  thing  which  should  not  go  without  mention  in 
the  briefest  sketch  of  the  history  of  Education  in  Massachusetts ; 
that  is,  the  signal  ability,  intelligence,  and  thorough  acquaintance 
with  every  thing  relating  to  the  instruction,  moral  elevation,  and 
discipline  of  the  schools,  shown  in  the  extracts  from  the  Reports 
of  the  School  Committees  of  every  part  of  the  State,  which  ac 
company  the  Annual  Reports  of  the  Board  of  Education. 

The  signal  success  of  our  Normal  schools,  and  the  supervision 
exercised  over  the  common  schools,  have  been  possible  only 
through  the  existence  and  wise  management  of  the  School  Fund, 
of  whose  legislative  history  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  speak. 

In  January,  1828,  the  Committee  on  Education,  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  in  a  report  made  by  the  Hon.  W.  B.  Calhoun, 
declared  that  means  should  be  devised  for  the  establishment  of  a 
fund  having  in  view  not  the  support,  but  the  encouragement, 
of  the  common  schools,  arid  the  instruction  of  school-teachers. 

In  January,  1833,  Mr.  Marsh,  of  Dalton,  suggested  the  expe 
diency  of  investing  a  portion  of  the  proceeds  of  the  lands  of  the 
Commonwealth  in  a  permanent  fund,  the  interest  of  which  should 
be  annually  applied  for  the  encouragement  of  common  schools. 
The  committee  say,  — 

"  It  is  not  intended,  in  establishing  a  school  fund,  to  relieve  towns  and 
parents  from  the  principal  expense  of  education,  but  to  manifest  our 

I  patiently  heard  every  teacher  and  every  class,  in  every  study  they  were  pursuing, 
and  saw  the  instruction  given  by  some  of  the  pupils  to  classes  in  the  Model  school. 

I  had  kept  myself  acquainted  with  all  the  operations  of  the  Normal  schools  in 
Massachusetts,  from  the  time  when  Father  Peirce  began  with  his  class  of  three  girls, 
at  Lexington,  to  the  end  of  the  school-year  in  1855;  and  I  was  obliged,  to  my  in 
finite  surprise  and  gratification,  to  come  to  the  conclusion,  that  there  was  not  a  single 
point  in  which  the  Massachusetts  schools  were  not  immeasurably  superior  to  the 
Berlin.  Our  course  of  studies  was  better,  our  methods  of  instruction  and  discipline, 
the  intelligence  and  vivacity  of  our  teachers  ;  but  the  greatest  difference  was  in  the 
character  of  the  materials  out  of  which  the  future  teachers  were  to  be  made.  Instead 
of  the  bright,  earnest,  wide-awake,  intelligent  Yankee  girls,  who  formed  eighty  per 
cent  of  the  pupils  in  our  Normal  schools,  I  saw  only  ungainly,  awkward,  dull  young 
men,  of  whom  it  was  impossible  to  help  feeling,  that  most  of  them  were  there  because 
they  were  too  lazy  to  work,  and  too  stupid  to  hope  to  succeed  in  any  calling  which 
required  intelligent,  thoughtful  activity. 

In  the  gymnasia,  I  speedily  came  to  a  different  conclusion ;  for,  while  I  nowhere 
saw  —  in  mathematics,  in  natural  philosophy,  astronomy,  and  kindred  branches  — 
instruction  given  better  than  I  had  often  seen  at  Cambridge,  and  in  the  High  School 
in  this  city,  in  instruction  in  the  elements  of  language,  and  the  subsequent  course  in 
Latin,  in  English,  in  French,  and  especially  in  their  own  German,  I  was  obliged  to 
admit  that  they  were  far  beyond  what  I  had,  then,  anywhere  seen  here. 


LEGISLATION   AND   HISTORY.  495 

interest  in,  and  to  give  direction,  energy,  and  stability  to,  institutions 
essential  to  individual  happiness  and  the  public  welfare.  .  .  .  Therefore 
we  recommend  that  a  fund  be  constituted,  and  the  distribution  of  the 
income  so  ordered  as  to  open  a  direct  intercourse  with  the  schools ;  that 
their  wants  may  be  better  understood  and  supplied,  the  advantages  of  edu 
cation  be  more  highly  appreciated,  and  the  blessings  of  wisdom,  virtue, 
and  knowledge,  carried  home  to  the  fireside  of  every  family,  to  the  bosom 
of  every  child." 

In  February,  1834,  a  committee,  after  a  very  able  Report,  full 
of  most  valuable  suggestions,  reported,  by  their  chairman,  A.  D. 
Foster,  an  Act  to  establish  the  Massachusetts  School  Fund :  — 

"  That  all  unappropriated  moneys  now  in  the  Treasury,  derived  from 
the  sale  of  lands  in  the  State  of  Maine,  and  from  the  claim  of  the  State 
on  the  United  States  for  military  services,  be  appropriated  to  constitute  a 
permanent  fund  for  the  aid  and  encouragement  of  common  schools." 

This,  the  "  Massachusetts  School  Fund,"  went  into  operation 
Jan.  1,  1835. 

By  an  Act  passed  in  1854,  the  fund  was  enlarged  to  a  million 
and  a  half  of  dollars,  by  the  transfer  to  the  Fund  of  2,944  shares 
of  the  stock  of  the  Western  Railroad  Corporation  held  by  the 
State.  By  a  law  of  1859,  the  School  Fund  is  to  be  further  in 
creased,  from  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  lands  in  the  Back  Bay;1 
and  it  has  been  thus  increased  by  the  addition,  from  that  source, 
of  the  sum  of  $456,930.06 ;  making  it,  since  the  1st  of  January, 
1866,  82,000,000 ;  to  which  sum,  for  the  present,  it  is  limited. 

"  The  establishment  of  the  School  Fund,"  says  Governor  Boutwell, 
"was  the  most  important  educational  measure  ever  adopted  by  the 
government  of  the  Commonwealth  ;  and,  in  connection  with  the  organ 
ization  of  the  Board  of  Education,  it  has  wrought  a  salutary  change  and 
reformation  in  the  character  and  influence  of  our  public  schools."  —  "  With 
the  fund,  it  is  possible  to  obtain  accurate  and  complete  returns  from  nearly 
every  town  in  the  State.  Without  it,  all  legislation  must  prove  ineffectual. 
By  the  aid  of  the  fund,  all  material  facts  are  annually  made  known  to  the 
State ;  without  it,  each  town  is  kept  ignorant  of  what  its  neighbors  are 
doing.  With  the  fund,  we  have  a  system  ;  without  it,  all  is  disjointed  and 
disconnected."2 

One-half  the  income  of  this  fund  is  annually  "distributed 
among  the  cities  and  towns  of  the  State,  in  proportion  to  the 

1  Twenty-fourth  Report  of  the  Board  of  Education :  Secretary  G.  S.  Boutwell's 
Report,  p.  74.  2  Id.,  p.  76. 


496  EDUCATION   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

number  of  children  in  each,  between  the  ages  of  five  and  fifteen 
years ; "  on  condition,  however,  that  no  apportionment  shall  be 
made  to  a  town  or  city  which  has  not  sent  in  a  report,  and  which 
has  not  raised  by  taxation,  for  the  support  of  schools,  during  the 
previous  school-year,  a  sum  not  less  than  one  dollar  and  fifty  cents 
for  each  person  between  the  ages  of  five  and  fifteen.  This  sum 
is  now  increased  to  three  dollars  for  each  child. 

From  the  other  half  of  the  income  of  the  School  Fund  must 
be  paid  "  all  money  appropriated  for  other  educational  purposes," 
such  as  the  support  of  the  Normal  schools,  schools  for  the  blind, 
for  the  deaf  and  dumb,  for  feeble-minded  persons,  &c. 

By  the  wise  and  careful  distribution  of  the  former  half  of  the 
fund,  with  its  conditions,  the  inhabitants  of  the  towns  and  cities 
in  the  Commonwealth  have  been  induced  to  raise,  by  voluntary 
taxation  of  themselves,  sums  for  the  support  of  the  schools,  which 
have  been  constantly  increasing  from  1837  to  the  present  time. 
The  mere  increase  for  1867  "  amounting,"  according  to  the  able 
secretary  of  the  Board,  « to  8362,328.87;  a  sum  added  in  a  single 
year  nearly,  or  quite,  equal  to  the  entire  amount  raised  by  tax 
in  1837."  i 

•The  small  bonus  of  twenty  cents,  or  at  most  twenty-five  cents, 
for  each  child  between  five  and  fifteen,  has  been  used  as  a  lever 
to  induce  the  people  to  raise  by  voluntary  taxation,  every  year, 
from  twenty-nine  to  forty  times  that  sum,  in  all  the  towns  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

We  were  recently  told,  in  an  admirable  school  report,  by  one 
of  our  associates,2  who  is  as  careful  in  his  statements  as  he  is 
eloquent  in  the  enforcement  of  truth,  that,  in  France,  two  and  a 
half  millions  of  children  are  taught  at  a  cost  of  over  six  millions 
of  dollars,  that  is,  at  $2.06  each  child ;  and  that,  in  1856,  the  total 
expense  of  primary  instruction,  for  3,850,000  children,  was  over 
eight  millions  of  dollars,  or  82.07  for  each  child ;  by  primary  in 
struction  being  meant  all  instruction  below  that  of  the  colleges. 

In  Massachusetts,  in  1867,  the  money  raised  by  voluntary 
taxation,  for  261,408  children,  between  five  and  fifteen,  including 
only  expenses  for  wages,  board,  fuel,  care  of  fires  and  school 
rooms,  was  82,355,505,3  that  is,  89.10  for  each  child;  and  "the 

l  Thirty-first  Annual  Eeport,  p.  39.  '2  Hev.  R.  C.  Waterston. 

3  This  money  undoubtedly  comes  mostly  from  the  rich,  and  the  greatest  gainers 
are  the  poor.  Yet  it  is  voted  readily,  and  paid  most  willingly.  "  Government  can- 


U.C.  BERKELI 


325 


14  DAY  USE 

RN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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R-n         ,°°th.edaa=  to  which  renewed  ' 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall 


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